While a lot has happened in the past few weeks, here’s an excerpt of a voice memo from Monday that brought a lot of joy:
It was just a Monday evening, July 17, when I was at the Hop Shop with members from the Santa Cruz Watershed Collaborative for my last Coordinating Team meeting. As I was leaving work to go, I saw the rainstorm coming up from the South and I just knew, “Oh this is gonna be the big one! I can feel this is it.”
I get to the Hop Shop from WMG and everyone else is giggling around me because we all realized it was happening. One person was looking at the radar every 30 seconds, just wondering if the rain gonna come here yet. Others were outside, just anticipating this moment. We were pretty distracted from the actual meeting agenda.
When we first saw the drops of rain, we were out in the parking lot dancing with our hands up in the air, letting big drops of water land right into our eyes and our smiles were wide from cheek the cheek.
I didn’t realize this was what I needed at this moment. It’s been a month and a half since the last rain and it’s been 100+ consistently in June and reaching 110 in July. There was a tightness in my chest wondering if it was going to rain when I was still here, and there was just such a big relief having it all of a sudden. A torrential downpour throughout the city.
This is what coming together as an environmental community means: where everyone is laughing, there is joy all around us, and celebratory shouts for the first monsoon in the season. I didn’t realize how special it would be to be drinking beer with water geeks! When topics around the water crisis can feel overwhelming, it's refreshing to have these moments of connection.
With the first rain, there was exciting chatter: “Is my basin going to be filled when I get back? I wish I was at home right now to watch the rain. I wonder how much rain my home is getting?” I could hear these conversations throughout the evening. Even the following day, everyone is checking in at work to see how much they got at their own homes.
I had a similar excitement. I look at the weather app a few times a day just to see if the 50% chance of rain will change one way or another. I’m staring at the radar to see if the storm will reach the city limits. I have this child-like giggle when seeing puddles along the road and the lightning soaring across the sky in the Catalina Mountains. Truly remarkable.
The desert feels completely different when you’ve been sitting and walking in 110° weather for the past month wondering when this rain is coming…and that satisfaction of it being 70° outside post-storm because the rains came and the clouds cooled off the land.
That’s what it means to live in the desert what it means to live in Tucson: in a space where monsoons are precious, water is life, where you can just smile at the rain and breathe in the creosote.
Life has been pretty different the past 3 weeks with the change of monsoons. From attending the Mennonite Convention in Kansas City to saying goodbye to Michaela, Jessie, and then Cade; it’s been a pretty emotional time recognizing the fact that my time will be over soon as well. Our MVS Unit presented a seminar at MennoCon called Rivers in the Desert, and it’s public on YouTube for anyone to watch! Check it out if you’re interested in learning more from our experiences and what it means to serve in a community.
I finish up on July 20th at WMG, and there’s a lot of emotion in wrapping up with a work community that I’ve spent so much time at this past year. WMG is doing remarkable work, and I appreciate the opportunity to support, lead, and engage in this space. I have one more clean-up I’m leading this evening, which is a truly special moment to be out along the creek with volunteers taking time to serve the environment around us.
The house has been especially lonely since my housemates have gone their separate ways, but I’m thankful for the support community that has made my ending in Tucson feel special. With about one week left, I’m excited to travel and see Elisa in Safford this weekend and do some last-minute visits in Tucson that I haven’t gotten to do yet. For now, I’m just soaking in every last moment, just like the land soaking in the Monsoon rain.
Andrea, you write so beautifully and you capture the bittersweetness of being the one to wrap up this incredible MVS year - and I'm so glad you were here for the first monsoon! Be blessed with that stormy rainfall! We love you.