Dancing in the Rain, Goodbye Smoke

Buddies, even in a hail storm

As most of the nation's attention is drawn to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey, We in the West are burning up, literally. The fires rage in Washington and Montana and the rest of the West breathes it in.

The high school football games were canceled because of air quality, (This comment is in no way meant to make light of those suffering in Texas. Instead, I'm stating that we haven't seen the sun for a while.)

Portland was a blur behind smokey skies on September 5, 2017. (SBG photo)&nbsp

Need I say more. Now this will seem obvious to most of my readers because you're here with me, but for those of you who read my stuff internationally, you may find our normally clear skies unappealing this time of year.   We like pine trees and forests in the West, but we don't like to breathe them. And this is the season of the burn. Every year my home state burns. Every year I breathe it in and wonder when the rains will come. I hope, I pray for them to come.

My front yard getting smashed by the downpour 

I love the rain. When I lived in São Paulo, Brazil in the late 90's, it rained for 26 days in a row. The rains would come without warning and make the roads into rivers. Cars would be completely covered by rain water flowing down hills. It was awesome natural power to see so much rain. The air would clear and the pollution would lessen for a while.

I lived there as an LDS missionary, so every day I would be out in the weather. I became used to it in a way. I don't remember how many umbrellas the rain broke. I eventually stopped buying them because they didn't keep me dry anyway. I kept everything that I wanted dry in plastic bags and dripped the rest of me dry.

As a missionary, I had a companion who stayed with me all of the time. And my job was to train this young man from Utah what missionary life was all about. On his first day, I helped him unpack his belongings. He had purchased at some point a cane umbrella. It was a massive 5f to 6f radius affair that made him look like an Englishman right off the boat in the late eighteen hundreds. All he needed was a derby hat to complete the ensemble. As I said, he was from Utah; therefore, he was completely ignorant of the power of a Brazilian rain storm.

The weather had been oppressively hot. about 40 degrees centigrade, about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, with 100 percent humidity and I knew, I knew that it was going to pour down on us and drown this poor kid from the great American desert.

Sarahmay, happy to be in the rain

Sure enough, the rain started; black clouds, tremendous, boiling, shooting lightning like an angry god with darkness spreading below them, inky sheets of water. We could hear it coming. I had been in Brazil long enough to feel it long before the clouds were visible.

As I walked to the door to leave for the evening, I could see my companion scrambling for his mega-umbrella. "It won't help, you'll just get soaked anyway." He looked at me like a mad man. "Here, these will help keep your books and scriptures dry," I handed him the plastic baggies. Then I walk out into the deluge. Already sloshing in my shoes, with runnels of water streaming down my back, I turned around to see him stopped by the door. "You coming?" I asked. "You're insane," he said with a hint of uncertainty, a hint of regret, a definite resignation as if to say 'of course, you were the type of companion I'd get.' Then he walked out into the rain, umbrella up, that less than useless aegis from another time.

We didn't make it two blocks before it was destroyed and in someone's garbage. He stood there, dripping, knee deep in muddy water, smiling, stripped from the world that he had once known.

I'm not sure what Jesse is doing here

This must be where my kids get it. But I remember Sarah saying that she too loved to play in the rain when she was a child.

We stood on the front porch, together, watching our kids play in the gutter as the rain and hail came down in a tremendous storm knocking the smoke out of the air and throwing sonic booms around with each thunder clap.

Griffin yells, "I caught a hail ball in my mouth" then he stands there, face exposed to the elements trying to catch another.

Wearing their winter coats, they industriously gather fluvial gravel to make dams and catch bits of trash as they flow down stream. We live on a mountain, so the water rushes past with the rate of a small river.

She's grabbing for something

Sarahmay's galoshes are full of water and Sarah and I can hear her squishing around with every step. The kids are happy and really wet, but there has never been such big smiles. The earth smells fresh and clean.

The rain stops and the welcome sun comes out. A sight that we have not seen clearly for a long while. I gather the kids' coats and hang them on the clothesline while the kiddos go inside to showers and soap, and pajamas.