Tag: monsoon season

Never Tired of Miracles

Yes, I’m writing about rain again. Rain in the desert. I never tire of miracles.

I ran, despite the thunder, despite the lightning, daring the storm to get closer to me. The air was so soft, so cool, barely drizzling, not really a storm yet. Above, there was a blue hole in the clouds. The birds seemed excited, a pair of desert cardinals chattering and flying from bush to bush. Something in another bush made a loud ticking sound like someone running a stick across the slats of a wooden fence. I stopped in surprise, trying to see the source, but all I got was another noisy round of clicks. The temperature dropped down from the 80s to the 70s. I ran until the thunder moved in, and the sheer wall of gray across the lake became dark and solid, rain driving straight down from the sky as the gloriously cold wind grew stronger.

I finished my run a little sooner than I would have liked. I wanted to stay out on the trail, but the last time I’d lingered thinking, “Oh, that cloud sliding across the lake is just mist,” it turned into a storm that suddenly whipped through and drenched me. So this time, I left a little early, and the storm got stuck just behind the turtle on Turtleback Mountain. Still beautiful. Still a miracle.

 

A Ramble about Rain

It’s hot here, though New Mexico is cooler than Texas. (Yes, you can take that as a double entendre.) With temps around 100 to 05 for a week, we want rain. Even a light sprinkle smells heavenly, and a small rainstorm invites a bigger one, moistening the air enough that the next time the clouds feel heavy, more rain will reach the ground, not evaporate and hover in shaggy trails of virga.

The following tricks provoke the clouds:

Walking without an umbrella when the sky looks promising. Most people here enjoy getting rained on, so this isn’t a sacrifice.

Watering fruit trees. If my neighbor and I water on the same day, this is even more effective.

Washing cars. This is not a decision to make lightly, since it uses water, and therefore should be done on rare occasions. However, if I get my car washed on the same day my neighbor and I both water fruit trees, rain is almost guaranteed, regardless of the forecast. All cars in New Mexico are covered with a thin layer of desert dust at all times, except immediately after washing. A heavy monsoon will wash one side of your car if the wind is right, but in general, rain will speckle and smear the dust even if you don’t drive through a puddle.

Some people get so excited about rain they drive fast and splash through the giant puddle that fills the intersection of Marr and Clancy in Truth or Consequences.

A big fuzzy blob of orange and pink sunset, hazy with rain, reflected in Lake Clancy tonight. A reward for all those rain provocation tricks.

Monsoon, Moon and Mandala

Luna023

Finally. A real monsoon.

The sky had to work up to it. After a couple of weeks with temperatures in the upper nineties and low hundreds, it took a few days of clouds and passing sprinkles to cool things off enough that rain could survive its trip to the ground without evaporating in mid-air in those beautiful but maddening long gray brushstrokes. This is a tough place to be a water droplet, but at last they came together in a grand, full-sized storm. And then the power went out. I tried not to think about how long it would be off or what would happen to the week’s groceries I had just put away. I stumbled and groped my way outside and sat under the overhanging roof to watch the rain, feel the cool (probably eighty-something) night air, and enjoy the view of T or C without lights. Occasional passing cars lit the streets, but the only steady glow was from the full moon behind the storm and one tiny cloud-hole with a star in it. My neighbors a few doors down were already sitting outside, their voices softer than the rain.

Having had little time for writing all day, I brought paper and pen out with me to do the mandala for the book in progress. I could see well enough by the clouded moonlight, and it didn’t have to be a work of art. This process was due, like the rain. I had to work up to it with eight chapters first, to see who was going to be in this book and get a sense of where the conflicts and connections would be. Able to see well enough to draw, I made a circle with the names of my protagonist and her significant other in the center and all the other characters’ names around them, connected in complex patterns that swirled around the outside and wove through the inside of the circle. It was satisfying, and will remind me of relationships and loose ends and potential allies as well as enemies. This is as close as I get to an outline, and I will refer back to it often. I got the mandala idea from Writing as a Sacred Path by Jill Jepson, which I found in Santa Fe’s magical Ark Books several years ago. Every book I’ve written has had a mandala.

I finished it and the moon emerged. The rain was over and big puddles reflected the moon back at herself from the streets and alleys. Then the power returned. My neighbors and I stood at the same time, and as if we were driven to light like moths we went inside to the electric glare, leaving the moon behind.

 

 

Picture: Luna023 by Cezar Suceveanu