Dear Mother Nature

Now playing: Howard Shore - Plasma Pool
via FoxyTunes

Dear Mother Nature -

Hey, I just wanted to check in with you, make sure everything was okay. I got a little worried when you left the party so abruptly like that, and truth be told, it just wasn't the same without you.

I have to admit, I was stoked when the invitation came through a few days ago. It sounded like you were really going to pull out all the stops and just let the clouds rip. It had been so long since you last graced us with pleasing precipitation that my friends and I started talking about it with gusto. "Here comes a storm!" we thought, "Man, we're really in for a treat!" We even didn't mind that the invitation suggested that things could get a little rough: We'd been without such revelry for so long that we didn't care.

And man, when this morning came, you really started to deliver. It was a non-stop event, the water flowed freely, the wind gusted merrily, and fun was had by all (who were inside and dry, but hey, everyone got the invite, so they knew what was coming). It really felt like a return to form, like a herald of a wonderful rainy season to come. The plants perked up and rocked out, and so did we.

It even went on for a number of hours unabated, which was a thing of beauty. You seemed to regain some of the rainy splendor that had been missing from our little corner of California for some time now, delivering an honest-to-goodness rainy streak that lasted for more than an hour or two in between months of dryness.

But, sometime during the early afternoon, you turned the clouds off and sort of wandered away. "Oh, it shouldn't be a problem," we assured ourselves, "The water was getting low, and someone needed to go on a rain run anyway, these things happen, she should be back in no time." But then a weird thing happened, you didn't come back. Oh sure, you kept the sky pleasantly overcast, as if you turned around before you left and said "I'll be right back!", but we waited for a long time. You didn't come back.

Then people started wandering away, the ground started to dry up, and people began to wonder what happened to you. "What could be keeping her?" we thought, "Why did she get up and leave so suddenly?" We did get a hastily scrawled note in your hand, saying something vague about how if Father Sky was in a good mood, you'd come back, but that didn't really convince anyone.

It pains me to admit that I am a bit of the jealous type, and I hope you won't be angry with me when I tell you that I used the local Doppler Radar to find out where you went. But, Mother Nature, I can't tell you how sad I was to see that you'd moved the party over to the Central Valley, leaving us folks here in the Bay high and dry. You're still there right now, whooping it up with Modesto and Stockton with some really heavy precipitation. But it hurts me, even after the fun time we had today, to see you just up and leave without so much as a fare-thee-well, and no promise of any rain in the near future, for me or my friends.

But the Radar, I also admit, is providing me with a bit of schadenfreude: I see that you're slowly backing away from the Central Valley, too, and that soon they'll be just as confused as lonely as I and my friends are right now. I know it's your nature to be wild and unpredictable at times, but it seemed like we really had a good thing going. Sure, Belmont said that they got a little bit flooded and had some traffic jams, and I overheard some of the hill regions muttering about mudslides, but we were ready for that sort of thing.

So, come back, Mother Nature. We're sorry if we said or did anything to upset you. If you'd just come back with more rain and fresh wind, all will be forgiven. If you over-indulged and went and hailed in an alley somewhere, we understand and don't think badly of you for it. Just come back and grace us with your presence again. The party just isn't the same without you.

Sincerely -
San Leandro


Enough, More Later.
- James