Nature Journalism - After the Storm
“There are countless things that give us equal pleasure, dawns and sunsets, clouds, the color of leaves, the finding of a rare flower, watching a beaver build his house...”
It was the morning after a day of stormy weather and my world was mostly quiet. The sun was visible for the first time in what feels like weeks, setting the dew-covered field and the old veranda aglow. The bare limbs of the Japanese Red Maple tree were washed in the same golden light and had yet to shake off the last of their leaves. The nearly 48-hours of rain that descended upon Bellevue the day before stripped a number of trees in the yard of their properties. Their stark appearance, a testament to the unpredictable patterns of rainfall in my beloved state, looked almost grotesque in comparison to the maple. Below me, scattered throughout the courtyard, were puddles of all shapes and sizes. I convinced myself that if all the rainwater were collected from these tiny little ecosystems, then it would be enough to create the sizable pond my Dad has always wanted. I watched as one, in particular, begins to bubble and sputter: the storm drain.
I craned my neck forwards to watch as storm debris travels swiftly between the courtyard’s bricks towards the drain before being brought to a dramatic halt at its entrance. It strongly resembled a half-hearted and messy attempt at the construction of a beaver’s dam (although I believe that if a beaver were to face off against the unconventional debris from the stream, he too would struggle). As the sun continued to make its way across the sky, shadows begin to reveal themselves. I could begin to make out what belongs to the Maple Tree from those belonging to the seemingly insignificant shrubs that will begin to blossom in a matter of weeks. Their off-gray leaves, reminiscent of the winter sky, would slowly regain their lovely green hue in the days to come.
I was immediately reminded of spring in the Pacific Northwest; something that I haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing for the past three years. As much as I loved waking up every day in Los Angeles to the promise of blue skies and sunshine, the beginnings of spring at home was always something I looked forward to. Those rare sunny days in the PNW, where everything looks strange, beautiful, and altogether right in the world, were the ones that I savored the most. Sitting on the porch that morning, I was reminded of the childhood pride I felt for my home and how often I would remind others of it. “No, not D.C. I live in Washington, state” I would say to my extended family. “The one above Oregon, below Canada, and with all the Starbucks coffees, serial killers, mountains, and trees.” I would then go on to list anything I could think of that was unique to Washington that would cause some jaws to drop.
My all-time favorite fact to drop: the nearly 300 days of rain we experience on average. At some point, I started to mention the rain to elicit declarations of pity from my audience rather than a general interest in the place where I had spent 18 wonderful years of my life. “It won’t stop raining,” I began to say. “So, that’s why I moved to Los Angeles the first chance I got. I never knew what the sun was.” At the time, I believed this reasoning for my life-changing move to be on of contempt for rainy day temperatures averaging under 45 degrees all year. Now that I think of it, I believe it was just a desire for a major change in location. And yet every now and then, when it’s sunny out, I find myself looking forward to a little bit of rain.