The other evening my wife announced: “I smell rain.”
I didn’t because my sense of smell sucks but Linda, like many other Tucsonans, picked up that unique seasonal scent. No sooner than hearing her pronouncement, I went to the source of all authority: social media. Sure enough there were a sprinkling of similar comments by my Facebook friends.
“I smell rain,” wrote Jeff Rogers.
“Pipe down ... I think I hear something,” Ted Prezelski posted.
And Karla Gómez Escamilla, a reporter for Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network, posted a photo of her rain-splashed windshield while in Nogales. That was mean.
By Thursday parts of the Tucson area got a good drenching — fitting, since rain almost always threatens the Fourth of July holiday.
It’s that time of year when Tucsonans are teased by the smell of impending summer rains, the appearance of bubbling storm clouds and the anticipation of the chorus of thunderclaps. We begin to count the days (not unlike our countdown to our first 100-degree day or at a lesser level the wait for the Night Blooming Cereus at Tohono Chul Park) before the first downpour arrives.
By the end of June, rain-starved Tucsonenses can’t wait for water.
One day last week I saw two co-workers rush out of the newsroom to the balcony overlooking the inner patio at the Arizona Daily Star. I asked Samantha Munsey and Johanna Eubank, what was going on.
They said they had heard celestial rumblings and wanted to see if rain was in the making. I looked up to see a cloudless, hot blue sky. We returned inside disappointed.
While many of us eagerly wait for the monsoons to roll in, it’s not a universal pastime in Tucson. I suspect most people under the age of 40 don’t care or don’t understand this primal feeling.
Oh sure, there are some enlightened, appreciative Tucsonans who were born after 1974 who get antsy, but waiting for the rain is a characteristic of older folks. But I’m just guessing here.
Certainly growing up in Tucson, I don’t recall waiting for the rains to rake my west-side neighborhood like I do now. All I remember are the summer days when we got soaked and the wet desert behind St. Mary’s Hospital was our playground.
When the fat gray clouds opened up, out we went to dance in the puddles that collected on North San Rafael Avenue and feel the drops of water explode on our heads.
We were especially fond of the arroyo that ran behind our house. During the dry periods, which was nearly year-round, the wash held our secret hiding spots. But we were wise enough to stay out of the wash when it became a torrential mini river filled with swirling muddy water.
Playing in the rain would all come to a sudden and obligatory stop when lightning lit up the afternoon skies. Back inside to wait for the next lightning-free chubasco.
These are the summer days that mark Tucson, the ones that we can’t get enough of, filled with deep, dark rain clouds and creosote-scented humid air. As I finish writing, the sky is dark. The monsoons have arrived for their annual show, thankfully. We’ll chatter about the latest cloudburst, and we’ll post outbursts of hoopla and photos of water-streaked car windows on Facebook and Twitter.
And in what will seem like a blur, after days and nights of blistering lightning, thundering reverberations and pounding rain, this will all have passed, leaving us waiting for the next year.
