"A Cloudy Day"

"The journey Home" photo by Toni

Monday, December 10, 2007, 8:45 am

"Joie de vivre"

It’s a cloudy day. It’s still so interesting to me that cloudy days were normal where I came from, a day like today would happen once or twice a week. Cloudy days were familiar to me, they were so frequent, but on desert they are almost an anomaly.

I looked out the window to describe this day and the words “a cloudy day” came back into my mind, like from a former life. Back where I came from this day has a name. But if I only knew this climate, it would not have a name, it would just have a description.

It rained all night and this morning the sky is gray. How odd to see a gray sky out there. The gray is soft and light like the gray of a baby kitten. The gray is not pretty, it is the color of pristine snow when it is ruined back in New York City, when the snow has lost its beauty whiteness sparkle. The sky looks as if it were meant to be white but someone add gray tint to it. It is dun, white tinted gray. It is actually one of the off whites someone might choose to have a room painted, but looking at it now, I wonder why?

Well what do you know. The sun must have peeped thru a cloud somewhere because suddenly for an instant the dimmer went off, and it all brightened out there and turned lovely. But now the dimmer is back on. It lasted an instant but it was glorious. I guess this gray is chosen instead of white (for a room or background color) because it is easy on the eyes. But it is not! It is simply unattractive to the eyes, it merely makes light dim.

O there is that brightening again, but not as bright and not as long, just for an instant, brighter than before but still a treat. The memory that the world is really bright, and all the brightness in the world will return.

The vegetation is glorying in all the rain tho. Even tho it is mid December they love this gentle steady rain day after day. The vegetation is flourishing, we will have a beautiful spring. And the birds are energized by it. For them their desert has turned into a wonderful forest, their world is transformed.

It is chilly and damp and not my cup of tea, but it is so fresh that it brings a lift anyway. There is an odd excitement to this day, which belongs to the trees. This is their day. They bathe and bathe in lovely rain water, they drink and drink of lovely rainwater. The earth at their feet is soft and mushy just the way they like it. It is the world of moisture, a big treat for trees on arid desert.

Jan and Harry are planning to return to this world, a world which has water in it. The world of lakes and ponds and streams and waterfalls. A world of trees galore with huge green leaves. A world where the earth is not sand, but that dark brown thing you see in forests. A world which has ferns in it, they are returning to the world of ferns.

They lived in the woods for so long and loved the woods so much, that I can understand they are returning to their first love. I was a woods girl once myself. I remember being deeply profoundly in love with the forest, and the forest lakes, and the animals who live in the forest, the beavers who build their dams.

Now I would never leave the beauty of the Southwest. For me brilliant sunshine and flawless blue skies have come to represent heaven. A world of sparkling mind-boggling beauty. And I am used to being dry and warm all the time, happy as a lark. I would never return to the land of gray cloudy days, the world I came from.

I am no longer a woods girl of forest lakes. Altho a part of my heart will always belong to the water lilies which grow on top of them, and the seaweed which grows at the bottom of them, and the joy of a soft sandy bottom, and a canoe gliding thru and past the water lilies.

But now I am a girl of the Tucson city swim pools. The enchantment of lakes is just a sweet memory, like a lovely border around my mind. If I go too far away in any direction, it will bring me back to the sweet lakes of the Adirondacks. But the center of it now is this new world, where there are no dimmers. Where the sun is always at its brightest wattage. And the beauty is breathtaking. And everything is always in full color, sharpest clear most vibrant color there is.

The Tucson swim pools may not be an adventure into nature but they have their own happy spirit. They were designed for Tucson children to splash in and have fun in the whole long desert summer. And that atmosphere is still there, even tho the only ones who swim in it all thru the chilly winter are grown ups. And there is another kind of sweetness to them, water lilies they have not, but lifeguards lovely as water lilies abound. And it’s nice to stand on the deck, while you are summoning courage to dive in, and chitchat with one of the lovely waterlily lifeguards. They are that pure Tucson breed. Common sense, good sense, intelligence, kindness, friendliness, and conviviality. I don’t know where they get their clear minds from, perhaps the desert is conducive to clear mind. And their friendliness has pureness and sweetness to it too, like flowers on the desert. Which you notice so much and appreciate so much because there is no profusion. Beautiful days we have in glorious abundance here, but flowers are special. Tucson does not have the profusion of people New York City has, so the lovely friendliness of each one is fully noticed.

Swimming in the Tucson swimming pools is a social experience not an adventure into nature. But a lovely social experience. And altho no one in their right mind wants to go swimming on day like today, for some reason it still works. You’re out in the air, under the sky, swimming your laps. Your mind does empty itself, you do relax in water just warm enough to keep going. It is satisfying movement in water. And you do come out a new person. It is a form of yoga. Then you cross your fingers the showers are hot. And arrive back in the parking lot a new person. You leave with joie de vivre, which is all we ask of life, isn’t it?

Love, Annie