Powers of the Earth

Thursday was six months since I’ve moved to Tucson. It seems like it hasn’t been that long. It’s time for the storms now. And Friday morning the storm moved into my kitchen. But the maintenance guys say that cleaning out the gutter drain outside my kitchen should take care of that. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one.

I love desert summer storms. They are fast, furious, powerful. You can sit and listen to the thunder roll in from far away. The lightning dances across the sky. And the rains come down hard and quick. The other day I was getting ready to go shopping when it started to rain. So I fixed myself a bowl of ice cream. And by the time the ice cream was gone, so was the rain. All that was left was a light drizzle that feels absolutely wonderful, and that smell of rain. Rain in the desert smells like clean dirt, if you can figure that one out.

And the sunsets after the rains are full of powerful colors in the sky. The orange that lights up everything from the light reflected off the clouds is an odd wonder. I love it.

The storms are also powerful though. There are three or four storm warnings a week. It does not even have to be raining in the city for an advisory, especially of the flash flood variety. These are rains that are so hard you can’t see through. And when it rains in the mountains, all of that water has to go somewhere. The roads are covered with drifts of dirt now where the washes have run through them and flooded them. Flash floods come just as fast and hard as the rains do.

Just look what wind, rain, and time have created! I live in the state that boasts the Grand Canyon. (it’s about 6 hours away so I haven’t been yet). That’s power. I used to live in the state that boasts Arches National Park. I have been there.

I need to start carrying around my camera so I can get some pictures of the storms here.