Rain in the Desert
The storm promised to slake land parched enough to burn
Tucked into a plastic-molded chair, a basket of sample nail colors clicking in my lap, I wasn’t surprised when the monsoon came. Having arrived a day before from Portland—where winter’s reliable eight months of drizzle and drear had only just creaked to a halt—the forecast flashing across my phone had seemed like a churlish joke at best, and at worst, a personal vendetta.
But it was late June in Santa Fe, a city that had seen about an inch in total precipitation since the New Year. Wandering around town, in coffee shops and bakeries and art galleries, I saw a sparkle in locals’ eyes.
Rain, they said, whispering to each other like children before Christmas.
Finally.
We need it so badly.
Like so many other parts of the west, Santa Fe’s wildfire season has grown longer, dryer and more desperate. One 2016 study found that human-caused climate change doubled the western U.S.’s forest fire area over the three decades that had elapsed since 1984. According to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, some 70% of New Mexico’s population—about 1.4 million people—live in residential areas near to fire-prone wildlands, many of which are not prepared for wildfires.
The storm promised to slake land parched enough to burn.
Oregon, too, has seen its share of burn damage—including the unforgettable matrix of wildfires in September 2020 that caused Portland to have the worst air quality in the world. Even while buying stores out of HEPA filters and donning full-face respirators to avoid the health effects of the smoke—equated by some experts to burning through a whole pack of cigarettes in a single day—Rose City dwellers fared better than those who lived in the surrounding areas. Many lost their homes. Or their lives.
Still, sunny days in Portland are nearly universally accepted as a blessing. Even the most eco-conscious Portlanders I know cheer when an unseasonably shiny day makes a winter hike a comfortable option. And yes: I had come to the desert, in part, for some uninterrupted sunshine. With thunder in the forecast, I sighed, locked up the Airbnb and headed to the nail salon. I don’t usually spend time or money on manicures—but, I reasoned, I was on vacation, and the weather was forcing my hand.
The salon was fluorescent-lit and full. It felt like salons do in the weeks leading up to Christmas or New Years; a festive atmosphere quietly permeated the room. From the samples in the basket—disembodied acrylic fingernails painted in myriad shades—I chose a deep turquoise, skirting the line between fitting and on the nose.
The rain poured onto the adobe roof in a heavy rush like the end of a held breath: expected but sudden; full of relief. The storm was no surprise, but what happened next was: as the water hit the building, the room erupted in cheers. Strangers who’d been carefully training their gazes away from each other looked up, made eye contact and grinned, exclaiming. Such a simple thing, a rain storm, but in this moment it was a spontaneous celebration: a promise falling out of the sky.
In the desert, monsoons are celebrated despite their capacity for destruction. Sudden, heavy rains can go unabsorbed by dry, compacted earth, overwhelming drainage systems and causing the types of floods that can sweep cars off roads. Still, in a place where water means life, the attitude toward these storms is more like reverence than fear.
And in this moment in the nail salon, I couldn’t help but join in the celebration, giving my own little woop.
This rain I’d scoffed at and dismissed as untimely bad luck was anything but. It was abundance.