Usually, 'roun here, we get a little rain on a regular basis. A storm will come, it will rain, and then the storm will go and the sun will come out again. Not so in the last month.
In the last month, storms came, strengthened, waned, and almost went. They then reformed nearby, swirled and brought high winds at one point along with on and off showers and deluges and downpours and skies so uniformly gray you couldn't make out any definition.
Driving to work was hazardous due to poor visibility, large amounts of tree debris on the road, and over time, a great preponderance of potholes. The locals knew where the potholes were but the tourists didn't and because the potholes were filled with water those tourist drivers couldn't tell how deep they were until their car plunged into one and then the brake lights came on and slow rolling resulted for a time afterward until the shock of hitting one passed and the damage to the vehicle, if any, had been assessed.
Ugh.
Brennan Martinez- Unsplash.com
My checking of the weather during this period always brought dismay followed by the bolstering up of enough courage and resolve to face another round. The power went out for awhile there and the road to my house was littered with downed trees. It was like being under seige. Will the roof hold out? Will the roads continue to be passable? When is this going to end?
The rainfall totals got into the ridiculous range and at one point the higher peaks got snow and if I heard the weatherman again say that a 'deep plume of tropical moisture is heading our way' while relaying the forecast I braced for the worst because I knew what those words meant- those words meant pouring rain.
So what gives, Gaia? Why did we have to get so much water?
As usual, when I ask of her an exasperated weather question, Gaia does not respond. To do so would be like comforting a child and because she knows I am not a child, she will not humor me. Gaia's been around for millions of years and is beyond such questioning. I, the rational adult she knows me to be, must trust that our region of the planet being super wet serves a purpose, a purpose that ties in with other regions of the planet being very cold right now and heavy with snow while others are dry and uncomfortably hot.
Viewed from space, Earth looks kind of like a terrarium. There she sits, blue and white, a thin layer of atmosphere shielding her from meteors and her invisible-but-there magnetic field shielding those of us upon her from the solar wind. The ozone layer serves another purpose, the filtering out of ultraviolet radiation, which is very harmful to life, and the tilt of Earth's axis provides the Earth with seasons, which spur weather changes. Earth’s orbit is just far enough away from the sun to sustain life, abundant life, and the lone moon that circles her activates the motions of the tides.
Gaia doesn't have people, technology, and machinery regulating her health. She does it herself through the actions available to her, which are ice ages, volcanos, and earthquakes; fierce storms, raging fires, bitter cold, and searing dry heat. I have to assume that the island chain upon which I live needed to be rained upon to levels far exceeding what I thought were necessary. Where did all the water go and why was it needed are questions I'll never get the answers to so while Gaia ushers in a drying trend I'll assess the damage to the property here and get to work on a waterlogged fence that is seriously sagging, the result of the latest (and hopefully last) round of heavy rain for awhile.