Monsoon season has been pretty nice this year. We’v gotten some of those amazing downpours that you’d never go out into but that are so much fun to watch from inside. The lightening crackles right outside your window and the thunder booms so loud you jump even though it doesn’t scare you and you knew it was coming.

I love this time of the year. I love how the night air is chilled, with a promise of autumn right around the corner. I love how everything that had turned brown returns with a vengence and grows faster than you can keep up with it. I love how the ground sinks beneath your steps instead of kicking up dust.

I’m going to miss the rain today. It might not sound like a big deal but I love it. I’m heading down to Phoenix with my youngest brother, my niece, and my new nephew for my other brother’s surprise birthday party. We’re heading to his favorite restaurant (Riazzi’s for those of you in the Valley) for a few hours to surprise him and then heading back up to home. It’s only a few hours but it’s still enough to miss out on the evening rain shower.

I know that it’s silly to miss rain. However, we really don’t get a lot of it. It seems that some years we have only 2 seasons, snowy and sunny…and sometimes those are combined for 9 or 10 months of the year. Rain is different…it’s nourishing, enriching, fully of amazing power.

We may live in a forest up here but it’s still considered desert. And in the desert, rain is life.