I haven't seen it rain in LA, at least not in my part of town for a while. Not since I came back in August. That was over three months ago. Three months of everything around me surviving off the conflicting forces of tons of sunshine and a few midnight dews. I'm sure whatever rain had visited, was far before my arrival. So how long has it been? Half a year?
It wasn't long ago when living in Transylvania that I experienced the same awe at seeing the trees and plants come back from what looked like death and four months of winter. How did they survive that cold for that long? How does LA survive the thirst?
A woman I met in a store complained about a weather reporter's ill-predicted forecast of rain. It was eighty degrees outside and November. She told me she couldn't remember the last time she saw rain. "Really rain. Not that drizzle for an hour thing it does here. And when it finally does rain," she added half frustrated and half amused, "I'll have to explain what rain is to my little girl!"
Tonight it is raining. Like spring's first shoots of green along the dark arms of naked trees, rain wakes Southern California from her burning, endless summer. Earth we've left uncovered soaks it up, adhesion helps the grains hiding beneath the unrequested cement tomb.
Good thing I put off washing my car. The time was better spent with friends.
Last night I looked from it's windows. Puddles fill depressions in the street. When was the last time I saw a puddle that wasn't from a carburetor and swirling with oil rainbows? It's been too long, I thought. Outside the clouds wash the streets, the cities sins flow to the ocean and I felt grateful she drinks for us.
At work I walk by as the kids are asked, "When was the last time you seen it rain?" No one answered. The pool sticks and games were momentarily forgotten as mesmerized faces pressed against a window. Their attention was focused outside today. The question seemed coincidental considering I asked myself the same the night before in my car.
It was probably the first time this year it's rained, really rained here. Considering their age, for some this will be their first memories of rain. I watched as they were pulled away from the storm and scooted back to their games.
When will they see it again? Will they think back on today when years from now they wonder, when was the last time it rained? Will today be their answer?
