Desert Rain

In honor of the rain we have had this past week (unseasonable rain it is) I am posting and essay I wrote for a writing class about the rain this last winter when we went for such a long time without any rain at all. I hope you are all having a great Friday.

DESERT RAIN

I was born in John C. Lincoln Hospital on Dunlap Ave, in Phoenix, Arizona. Being a native in Phoenix is an unusual thing. Often when meeting new people we Arizona “Phoenicians” ask where each other originally came from. After all, the metropolitan area of Phoenix and surrounding cities grew by over one million people from 1990-2000. That means 45% of people weren’t here when I was a sophomore in high school. Growing up in this desert community has helped me develop a unique appreciation for the desert, the sunsets, and even the rain.

Rain has become something more than just droplets that fall from the sky for me. Rain, in the desert, is a precious, life-giving commodity. The rain in the winter is a colder rain, which helps me appreciate the 70 degree days that quickly return. The winter rain usually comes over Christmas time. It is a slower rain that I watch from my windows while sipping hot chocolate, the Christmas tree lights colorizing my reflection as I look out at the wet street. The winter rains make the desert air crisp and clean. The smell of the occasional fireplace mixed with the scent of rain makes standing outside between the moments of drizzle a special treat. I love those few mornings each winter when I have to pull out my credit card to scrape off the thin layer of ice on the car windows. Through high school, I’d have to leave extra early in the morning and I learned quickly the best way to melt off the ice on the car was to turn the hose on it. Wrapped in my light jacket, I’d hose off the windshield while leaving the car running. The car would be toasty warm by the time I’d hop behind the wheel to drive to school. As chilled as I would get, I was always grateful there was no snow to shovel and no need for heavy winter wear.

Even better than winter rain, is the summer monsoon. By May, the city becomes so heated up walking anywhere outside without the trusty flip flops is a huge mistake. The smell of charring flesh is not worth a quick run to the mailbox. However, by July the rains come. I always know when the rain is close. I wake up in the morning sweating from the rise in the humidity. All day, there is no way to get cooled off. I end up parking myself in front of the fans and air conditioning vents. Then, the afternoon comes. The clouds build to the north and southeast. I watch the clouds anxious for the rain. I watch them build higher and fluffier. The higher they are the more likely they are to make it to my house. Some days the clouds just tease, building and then dumping their precious drops onto the small towns just north of the city. Finally, the day comes when the thunderstorms finally rip through the valley.

As a little girl, my brothers and sisters and I would sit at the front door to watch the storms. The screen door would shake with the fierce winds but we felt perfectly safe inside. The rain drops would get bigger and fatter and the gutters would start to run. Sometimes, hail fall, covering the grass with a fine layer of little ice balls. If the layer was thick enough, when the rain would pause, we would run out and make hail balls to toss at each other. Sometimes the rain would be so heavy the street would flood a foot deep and the teenagers across the street would pull out their canoe and go paddling up and down the gutters.

Now even today I wait for those rains. The first rain of the summer, I try to make a point of going outside to stand in it and let it drench me. I feel cleansed, as if the monsoon rain is baptizing me, washing away the evils of the summer’s oppressive heat.

So, each year, the winter rains strengthen me and the summer storms renew me. They are enough to allow me to spend months without rain, because I know they will return when it is time. That is until this year. It is now March 1^st. The winter rains never came. The weather this winter has been warm and sunny. Warm and sunny, day after day, it has been absolutely beautiful, painful weather. I have been desperate for rain. I’ve started to complain about the desert I love. I’ve been lax in my bragging to friends in the north about the wonderful, warm, winter days. This is one of my favorite pastimes. The bragging in the winter is half of what living in the desert is all about. But I have lost my drive; I am weakening.