Looking out my Backdoor: Not original, not profound

I am a blade of grass. When I don’t have water I turn brown, crisp, wither into the ground. I lie dormant until such time as rains come. I am the same as a blade of grass — except that I can reach for water. My cousin, that blade of withered grass, can send its roots only so far into the ground until it hits bedrock or can grow no further. On second thought, I am a blade of grass.

It rained. You would have thought Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, and my birthday all came the same day.

Our last rain was in September. It never rains in May, our hottest, driest month. We await a first rain in mid-to-late June. This country where I live is dry as old dry bones.

It rained. Wasn’t supposed to rain. We got 6 inches of precious wet rain, unofficially. That’s a good estimate, given the standing water and soggy ground. Mid-May and it rained. Gracious! Can’t trust anything.

Blue sky all the way to near-dark. Then suddenly the southern sky loomed black and moved overhead and unzipped. At 8 I shut off my computer. Two minutes later the power banged off. But there was excess of power overhead.

And the rain poured down, straight down in sheets, a good three hours to begin and then continued off and on all night long.

The trees and grasses and myself laughed and sang and danced with glee. In the morning everything, our whole world, sparkled with wet and glee.

Have you noticed? Put a Montanan anywhere in the world and she can always find a way to talk about the weather.

Wet, yes, and glee, yes, and other stuff. When it doesn’t rain for eight months, and suddenly it rains 6 inches, more or less, a lot of debris washes off the roofs, off the highways and byways and walkways and any ways; it makes for slippery slopes.

Josue and Erika and Stephany didn’t get home that rainful night until after 9. It had rained all the rain in Spain on the plain in three and a half hours. The power was out. There was no light. No house lights. No yard lights. No moon light. No stars. Dark.

Josue slipped and broke his foot. The surgeon hammered in pins and nuts and bolts, welded and sutured and squeezed in axle grease. I took Josue my extra cane, my Zimmer frame, and my Cadillac wheel-chair-cart.

“Here are all my cripple aids. Use them, please.”

Three days later: I’m constantly amazed. My little chunk of lawn, with my new baby lime tree in the center, out by my front gate, that crispy brown square three days ago, is fresh with young green. In areas so bare and barren that you’d swear never held a grass blade, spears of the same green grasses are popping up.

Rain comes in many disguises, when one speaks of metaphorical rain. Josue broke his foot. His compadre, Stephany’s godfather, swooped up the family and took them to a resort in Cancun for a much needed get-away.

Josue is on the beach, away from worries about work he cannot do. Leo told him, “I envy you. But I envy you in a good way.” None of us could have said it better.

That 6 inches of surprise rain was a gift, to the land, to we who walk the land. We won’t see more until mid-June. But we know rain will fall. We’d simply forgotten. Such a human thing to do, to forget.

——

Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].