Hopelessness, and then hope

At last, the rain has arrived. After what seems to have been an interminable summer, a hot one even for Sebastopol, the glorious precipitation renews my hope, stokes my faith. My dog sits out in the mud in my back yard, in a downpour worthy of a John Cusak movie. She doesn't move a muscle, just soaking each glorious sphere of cleargrey water into her coat. What's most important to understand about this is the sheer length of summer, and the utter hopelessness I traveled through while enduring such oppressive, relentless heat. I was a broken man. I was liquefied, pureed, and spread on toast as hot as the asphalt of Hwy 101.

Perdition set in, deep in every tissue of my body. Hopelessness. Malaise mixed with a certain kind of laziness reserved for psych ward inhabitants and ousted despots. I couldn't believe that I would be here for another year. The project I had begun was quite well underway, I was committed to it for a year, there was no going back. No going back meant that I was stapled to this heat, this dry, dry heat for eternity. And for all I could tell, the heat would never ever end. I couldn't take it.

Fleas overtook my abode. Tics bit my dog mercilessly, inflicting lyme's disease through their tiny, savage fangs. Flies slowly churned the hot air. Blackberries wilted against their thorns. I took my dog on weekly trips to the Russian River where we plunged our steaming bodies into the cool, murky churn. Temporary relief instantly caked and dried on our bodies as we exited the river, returning to the relentless torment of heat soaking through our souls and dragging us hellward.

And then, it rained. Just days after the leaves on the vineyards turned color, and curled at the corners, drops fell. Big drops, plopping in ash-like dust among apple trees. Rain falling in dusty rabbit holes. Then more rain, slowly building like a terrific swelling orchestral tide. Then it really rained. I forget the exact measurement, but Santa Rosa flooded. The roof on the building where I work collapsed under the rain.

Finally, relief had come.