Tormenta
Collin Knox
I pity anyone who has never experienced the beauty of a desert monsoon. If you have never had the fortune of being caught in the desert during the arid late-summer months, let me describe it to you.
It’s 4pm on July 16th in Tucson, Arizona. It is the hottest point in the day, but it's not just hot; it's dry and oppressive. I step outside of my cool air conditioned house and feel like the sun has flown down from the sky and punched me square in the jaw. Every breath I take scorches my lungs and every drop of moisture in my body evaporates. I begin to question why anyone would choose to live here of their own free will.
All I left the house to do was get the mail. I walk out into the street and face the mailbox, being sure to place my hand inside my shirt before reaching for the handle because I know if I grabbed the black metal mailbox I would come back with 3rd degree burns. Shuffling through the mail I notice something odd, a particular smell that’s unfamiliar and causes me to look down. My flip flops have begun to melt into the asphalt, and I run back inside before my feet are next.
Feeling relieved to be back in an air conditioned environment, I go up the stairs into the loft and return to whatever it is I was doing; probably building Lego Ninjago or playing Battlefield 4 on my Xbox 360. You’re content and have nothing to worry about, no school, no work, no drama. I’m happy.
An hour or two passes before I hear my favorite sound in the world, a booming thunderclap. My face lights up and I run downstairs full speed, almost wiping out and crashing face first on the last stair. I throw open the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard.
I have never seen a backyard like this one. It's a large square shape, boxed in by ugly concrete cinder blocks on three sides, but it's the fourth side that interests me. It's the one that faces directly west and is contained not by cinder blocks, but by a 5 foot wall of vertical iron bars that are the only things separating me from the desert. The view is unparalleled. Through those bars there are cacti, mesquite trees, Javelina, owls, coyotes, bobcats, and endless amounts of other plants and critters. Although I love these things, my focus is drawn to the horizon, to the mountain right in front of me; the one that looks like a giant stone sombrero sticking out of the ground. Thick, slate colored storm clouds are gathered right above it and are slowly moving toward me. The sirocco that once assaulted my lungs now apologetically carries the sweet smell of petrichor from distant rains.
I pull up an old white lawn chair and wait, watching the swollen clouds march toward me. After some time, they park right above me and let loose all at once, as if God had flipped a switch. Giant raindrops fall all around me with nearly enough force to knock me off my feet. It rains right side up, sideways, and even upside down. Lightning strikes only a hundred feet away from me but I’m not scared. I continue to bask in the warm rain and watch it for an hour.
The pavement is no longer hot, my lungs no longer burn, and the sun is nowhere in sight. I realize that this is the reason someone would choose to live in such a hostile world. No matter how hot it gets or how many of the animals want to kill me, there is beauty all around. Beauty that is unmatched in any other part of the country and is only replicated in very few parts of the world. I have captured something uniquely beautiful, but it doesn’t last forever. The clouds go away, the sun comes back, the temperatures rise, my flip flops stick to the ground again. Although I hate it, the rains would not be so beautiful if life was comfortable every day.
It’s 4pm on July 16th in Tucson, Arizona. It is the hottest point in the day, but it's not just hot; it's dry and oppressive. I step outside of my cool air conditioned house and feel like the sun has flown down from the sky and punched me square in the jaw. Every breath I take scorches my lungs and every drop of moisture in my body evaporates. I begin to question why anyone would choose to live here of their own free will.
All I left the house to do was get the mail. I walk out into the street and face the mailbox, being sure to place my hand inside my shirt before reaching for the handle because I know if I grabbed the black metal mailbox I would come back with 3rd degree burns. Shuffling through the mail I notice something odd, a particular smell that’s unfamiliar and causes me to look down. My flip flops have begun to melt into the asphalt, and I run back inside before my feet are next.
Feeling relieved to be back in an air conditioned environment, I go up the stairs into the loft and return to whatever it is I was doing; probably building Lego Ninjago or playing Battlefield 4 on my Xbox 360. You’re content and have nothing to worry about, no school, no work, no drama. I’m happy.
An hour or two passes before I hear my favorite sound in the world, a booming thunderclap. My face lights up and I run downstairs full speed, almost wiping out and crashing face first on the last stair. I throw open the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard.
I have never seen a backyard like this one. It's a large square shape, boxed in by ugly concrete cinder blocks on three sides, but it's the fourth side that interests me. It's the one that faces directly west and is contained not by cinder blocks, but by a 5 foot wall of vertical iron bars that are the only things separating me from the desert. The view is unparalleled. Through those bars there are cacti, mesquite trees, Javelina, owls, coyotes, bobcats, and endless amounts of other plants and critters. Although I love these things, my focus is drawn to the horizon, to the mountain right in front of me; the one that looks like a giant stone sombrero sticking out of the ground. Thick, slate colored storm clouds are gathered right above it and are slowly moving toward me. The sirocco that once assaulted my lungs now apologetically carries the sweet smell of petrichor from distant rains.
I pull up an old white lawn chair and wait, watching the swollen clouds march toward me. After some time, they park right above me and let loose all at once, as if God had flipped a switch. Giant raindrops fall all around me with nearly enough force to knock me off my feet. It rains right side up, sideways, and even upside down. Lightning strikes only a hundred feet away from me but I’m not scared. I continue to bask in the warm rain and watch it for an hour.
The pavement is no longer hot, my lungs no longer burn, and the sun is nowhere in sight. I realize that this is the reason someone would choose to live in such a hostile world. No matter how hot it gets or how many of the animals want to kill me, there is beauty all around. Beauty that is unmatched in any other part of the country and is only replicated in very few parts of the world. I have captured something uniquely beautiful, but it doesn’t last forever. The clouds go away, the sun comes back, the temperatures rise, my flip flops stick to the ground again. Although I hate it, the rains would not be so beautiful if life was comfortable every day.
A photo I took last December, in Tucson, Arizona.