I (HEART) MIST!

I was waffling between New York and Washington DC as potential places to live when I go back to the US. This week I realized that I must add Seattle to the list. I haven't ever actually been to Seattle, but I love mist. I (HEART) MIST.

It never rains in Rinconada except when it does. El Niño is pretty much the only experience people have with rain, lightning or thunder. It also brings flooding, loss of life, loss of homes and loss of crops. People are terrified when it rains. They hate it, curse cold weather and are convinced that all kinds of physical maladies from arthritis to infertility result from temperatures below 75F. Frankly in Rinconada I believe it. There isn't any lightning in Rinconada except for during an El Niño. Pepe, my very adventurous little 8 year old buddy has never seen a bolt of lightning and never wants to. He is convinced that the local legend about the dog who was fried by a lightning bolt will happen to him on first sight.

Frankly I would be scared too. People grow cotton and rice in irrigated fields. The do not have a lot of control over how much water they get in the irrigation system so if there's too much water the crops will drown and if the temperature is too low the rice never goes to seed i.e. it never actually makes the rice. And normal lovely spring day temperatures here are in the high 80´s so 60F is basically freezing. People just aren't used to cold or wet weather and the whole thing is pretty scary.

But in Texas and New York, my homes there are thunderstorms and lightning and mist and the smell of rain. Which I do realize is ozone but, I think it smells amazing. One of my favorite things to do is sit outside when it rains and watch the lightning.

But it never rains, even in "rainy season" it only sprinkles for a few minutes once or twice sometime between December and March. Except this week. The earthquake has apparently stirred the sea currents and is making the climate much colder that it usually is. By much colder I mean a low of 60F. This is truly the coldest weather that I have ever experienced here. And there's a windchill. Result: There has been MIST twice this week! One day there was so much that water was running off the corrugated tin roves and falling in a rhythmic pat-pat onto the sandy streets. It took me at least 15 minutes to identify the sound.

Precipitation in the Peruvian desert is apparently always the result of a painful and emergent natural disaster (torrential rains, floods and earthquakes) but I gotta say, it really reminds me of home and hopefully of a place I've never been.