Rain in the Desert
I love the desert.It's a real hot and dry place. There's sand everywhere, and it goes airborne with even the slightest breeze. The days are never-ending infernos, while nights are chill and maybe even a little too cold sometimes. There's plants out here, but they tend to be pointy shrubs or succulents adapted to go without water for years. That or big water-sucking weeds that live only to spread painful little stickers everywhere. Lizards and little rodents wearing sandy brown camouflage on their hides are a common sight around our various barren wastelands littered with trash, and our households with ACs cashing big checks for working overtime. You might even hear a rattlesnake or come across a creepy bug like vinegaroons or a tarantula if you're lucky.
Hoping this
doesn't startle people with phobias, but if it does, I'm so sorry
Anyways, I live in a desert and I love it, but as you can imagine, rain isn't common around these parts. We've been living in a severe drought, and though climate change has brought us more rainfall than we're used to, it has also made our extreme temperatures worse with a smaller chance of precipitation on days where we need it the most.
When it does rain though... It's beautiful to behold. The usual warm yellow colors of the desert turn tropical and blue. The sand becomes muddy and healthier looking, and the plants in the sand get livelier and colorful the wetter they get. The streets, not originally made for this new heavier rainfall, turn into a bed for small streams and ponds. On heavier days, houses turn into waterfall fortresses and roads turn into giant lakes to the detriment of the drivers caught in them. I can't imagine how it feels like for all the little desert critters, but when it rains, standing out there to watch feels reinvigorating to skin, body, and mind.
On top of that, the aftermath of a heavy rainfall brings in more luscious plants. The mountains we have here are giant and deadly looking rock formations with not much to them. After it rains though, you'd think you were in a place like Montana or Vermont where there's trees and flowers everywhere.
Not our
mountains, but a pretty close
approximation of what they're covered in
SIDE TANGENT: The only consequence to all the foliage is that weeds and other undesirable plants end
up
sprouting everywhere to take advantage of all this free water they have. I mentioned in a VOID post
that
I spent a day clearing out weeds at my abuelita's house, but what I described was the second day out
of
the two I spent doing this. The first day, I spent my time pulling out weeds and couldn't go near
certain areas of my grandma's house because of the many wasp nests that had developed around the
pollen
these weeds were producing. Then the second day after my Dad and I had wiped out all the wasp nests,
we
were dealing with weeds waist high. The biggest one I pulled was the size of a juvenile tree. The
type
parks place next to sidewalks for decoration.
The best part of getting rain to me however is the lightning and the thunder. I live in a desert, but more specifically, in a city with lots of lights, air pollution, and noise pollution. I remember when I was little the stars that would show up in the dark night sky. They were bright and plentiful, and no matter where you went, you could always see them. Nowadays however, they're like the paint splatters of a very tidy person. There's very few of them, and they have next to no glow. They're dim little dots, and unless there's an airplane up there, there's nothing to see up in the sky without them.
So when there's rain, I'm always hoping and pleading that lightning and thunder will come to color the sky. Boom over the noise of the modern world with mighty terrifying crackles. Rumble without bass. Bass without the speakers. It's a wonderful otherworldly sight to behold and it has captivated me for years and years.
A picture of a rose
my grandma grew that the rain drenched back in 2022 So of course, that is what has led to all the imagery I've used throughout the years regarding damp green landscapes, flowers that come after rain, and last but not least, lightning. I wouldn't say it's an obsession of mine, but when I think of something that stands out, my mind immediately goes to rainy days in the desert. They stick out like sore thumbs in my mind, and especially lightning. Something so imposing and loud and angry. So bright and all encompassing and beautiful. It sticks with you when you live in such an ugly industrialized wasteland like this desert. Make no mistake though: I love the desert.