Give me more.
By the handful or the bucket. Via a downpour or passive-aggressive drizzle. Keep the rain coming.
For many in the land of sun-kissed living, one rain per year is enough. They view the precipitation as a personal affront because when it rains they suddenly have to bundle up in a light jacket and wear socks with their flip flops. On cold and rainy nights you might even catch them wearing yoga pants tucked into their Uggs or a thick hoodie over a long sleeved T-shirt.
No one suffers wet weather like a Southern Californian. Rain is to them what immigrants are to the GOP — foreign and dangerous. They slip and slide along slick highways and splash unwitting pedestrians who walk too close to a puddle.
They wonder aloud why they pay “all this sun tax” if they can’t go outside and see the sun behind the rain clouds.
And yet many of the sun worshippers will be among the first to jump into their cars, race along the highway and take selfies amidst the super blooms made possible by California’s winter storms.
They’ll plant and fuss over their luscious lawns, nourishing them with the water bought from their local water agency and shipped from the mountains or states outside of San Diego’s arid boundaries. Those cars that whisked them away to the living van Gogh paintings will be detailed and made shiny at home or at car washes and they will take long soothing showers after all of their chores.
And they will curse the oppressive, skin-burning heat that chokes the region from late summer through the fall. But they will curse at the faintest hint of a rain cloud passing through.
Not me. I bless the rains.
In addition to the pretty flowers and hot showers, the rain also wipes away the shiny veneer that blinds us because of a dazzling sun.
One or two thorough storms reveal our weaknesses. Water sinks into the cracks that decorate our city streets and before long a small offensive dip blossoms into a shoulder jolting, axle busting pothole. How long those potholes go unfilled, or how often they emerge reveal a city’s infrastructure priorities. Quality, thorough road paving may not be sexy but it matters.
Flooded streets and backed up storm drains show us how seriously we take the behind-the-scenes maintenance required to live a hassle-free life. When businesses are flooded because water rushes over the sidewalk and into their shops we get a sense of how business-friendly a particular neighborhood is.
Walk the streets in a downpour, venture out into the riverbeds and canyons and catch a glimpse of people living in the open because they cannot find shelter or enough services to get them onto their feet.
The rain is revealing. It washes away all that is good and shows us what needs to be seen.
