What drew my awareness to the storm was the scent of rain that drifted in through the open window.  I neither heard it or saw it at first... just the unmistakable scent of wet chaparral combined with what amounts to steam rising off the Earth when water comes in contact with the scorching layers of sand.

At first, it was just a typical desert rain - fat drops plopping on the Joshua trees, glistening like scattered diamonds in the slivered rays of sunlight which managed to pierce the clouds creeping in from the east.  Hummingbirds flitted at the feeder, and there was no indication - other than a prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck - that it would be anything more than a brief thunderstorm at the edge of monsoon season.

And yet, it wasn't long before the clouds grew darker and finally opened up to dump what must have been six inches of rain in less than half an hour.  Within moments, the driveway was gone altogether, and somewhere in the frenzy, the mail box has pulled up its roots and gone searching for otherworlds somewhere to the west. We shall not meet again in this lifetime, that much is certain. The road closest to the house is blocked by firetrucks and emergency vehicles, while small cars litter the landscape like discarded matchbox toys.  Lightning scatters the shadows for an instant, thunder hammering at the windows, causing the house and the weenie dog in my lap to tremble.

I draw it all in, savoring its flavor, its scent, its textures and sights and sounds.  The raindrops on my skin are sentient passengers, each one telling a thousand stories of a thousand lifecycles, the coming and the going, breathing in, breathing out. 

The odd thing about the storm raging outside was that it mirrored the one raging inside.  Over the past few days, an old conflict with an old friend had reopened, and despite all attempts at resolution, it seemed no resolution was possible.  So as I stood there in the aftermath of the storm, watching the raindrops drying on my feet and listening to the curses of a cactus wren as she shook the wet from soaked, spotted feathers, an awareness crept in through the crack between the worlds and settled somewhere in the vicinity of the crossroads where the nagual and the tonal overlap on rare occasions at the leading edge of a storm or the crumbling footing of a dangerous precipice.

"Life is a desert and the rain is too rare and precious to squander," it whispered.  "If you fret, trying to fix the leak in the neighbor's roof, you'll never find time to tango with the lightning or dance in the rain."

So... against all logic, I danced in the cold, cold rain and watched the lightning striking all around me.  And I let go of any idea of fixing my neighbor's roof or salvaging the remnants of a friendship that has clearly been washed away in the flood.

Life's too short not to dance in the storm.

Breathing in.  Breathing out.

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