DUSH BOWL '05


Every day they predict rain, and every day it does not come.

We're in the middle of a huge huge drought that they've only just now started talking about. The parks are brown and the leaves on the trees are cringing from the sun and the level of Lake Michigan is down, down, down. Forget the 700-odd old people who died in the Heat Wave of 1995; this thing is going to kill all the trees (although I'm sure god will be able to sort those out, too).

And there I go, leading people through sun salutations every chance I get, when what we really should be doing is a rain dance....but that's the forte of the *other* Indians, isn't it. Perhaps there's a Sanskrit monsoon chant somewhere?

Today I left the house at 5:45 am to teach the 6am class and lo and behold there was lightening which is not unusual (it torments us). And then something marvelous happened. Big fat drops of water hit the windshield, plop, plop, plop. Many of them. So many in fact that I had to use the windshield wipers, which I'd almost forgotten about. The rain made me feel like one of the characters in that Ray Bradbury story where night never comes and the sun is always there and it never rains and they are all slowly going crazy. Until it finally starts to pour.

I parked and pulled out the umbrella and used it for a few steps and then dumped it in favor of feeling the rare cold drops fall upon me. It was delightful after all of this cloying heat, and I felt like a character in one of those Bollywood movies where they belt out the song in the middle of the street in the middle of the monsoon. Only I don't really sing, there were no wardrobe changes or backup dancers (just some gung-ho triathletes on their way to the health club) and it only lasted a few minutes before the clouds slammed shut and the rain shut off. The downpour lasted just long enough to really mess up the poor plants and trees even more. And there's no rain forecast on the horizon, and the city is asking citizens to help water the trees so they don't all die like the old poeple did....

Maybe their plea will work this time.