Casa De Morrill

It rained today. I’m not talking about a quick desert rainshower that is preceded by a dust storm and leaves the desert looking like a lake with saguaros poking out of it. I’m talking the clouds rolling in quietly and blanketing the valley and then gently pouring rain on the entire area all day long, bringing with it cool temperatures and a chilly wind. The mountains disappeared today. The clouds hung so low that I couldn’t see the mountains that surround our valley. It was creepy to me.

I realized this morning that as we drive in to work every morning, I look out over the horizon at the mountains. There’s the Superstitions that form a chain to the east. There’s Four Peaks that’s sits a little higher than the other mountains as well as having it’s distinguishing four peaks. There are the Pinals that surround off to the north. More mountains, ones I don’ t know the names of yet, circle around the west and south of the valley. They’re always there, beckoning the sun to rise behind, painting the valley in bold strokes of color that make going into work at 6:15am well worth the drive.

They weren’t there today, though. Instead, a blanket of clouds hung over the valley, holding in the cool temperatures that embrace us at night. My sunglasses sat on top of my head, forgotten. It hadn’t started to rain yet when I walked onto the campus this morning. This afternoon, though, when I left work, the ground was pleasantly quenched with water and there was still a slight drizzle. When I left my doctor’s appointment, it was raining a little harder and as Sean and I ran our errands this evening, we moved quickly between the car and indoors.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to experience rain like this. This is the rain that you open up your windows just to listen to it patter on the roof. Instead, we had only gotten the hard rains that left the ground oversaturated and unable to drink in the water fast enough. The rains that last only 5 minutes, but dump a good 1-2 inches in that 5 minutes. Today reminded me of being back in Alabama during the winter. I realized that as much as I got tired of that weather very quickly, it was nice to have it every once in a while. I guess today is my once in a while. I think I can handle that. For now, though, I’ll look for the mountains in the morning and hopefully they’ll be there.