(Originally Published August 05, 2018)
Many people dread rain, particularly storms of the kind we have been experiencing recently. Rivers crest well past their usual flood stage, storm drains are taxed, and we often find water outside their appointed containment zones. However, the natural world seems to have an idea of what to do when things get out of hand, and the elements of fire and water often purge and cleanse in ways we may never understand.
This doesn’t mean that I support massive flooding or wildfires, nor the casualties they cause, but we must also realize that we don’t belong everywhere that a house rises, just because somebody builds it there. People have lived in toxic waste areas and at the feet of potential volcanoes and floods for ages, though, and we’re not likely to build our lives upward, but simply continue to spread outward. With that spread comes the chance of disaster. We have seen it happen in the East, and right now Hawai’i is being reshaped by the fiery lava from a volcano.
In the aftermath of fire often comes rebirth as the first fir trees sprout from the ashes. It is as if nature pushes for a fast recovery. Water, on the other hand, does not consume but simply piles its carried waste along until it lands someplace and has to be dealt with. A museum has on display the findings collected from the Johnstown Flood of 1889, showing how the devastation took over 2,200 lives and destroyed the town. If one were asked which is worse–fire or flood–many would be hard-pressed to choose.
At the end of rain, though, does come a cleansing; a washing away of all the filth that we have created on the ground. I feel safer walking on sidewalks after a rain, because I like to think that whatever spit people planted on the pavements is gone for a short while, but really it is a chance to see a clean space. Something we don’t see very much anymore.
Some places still embrace sweeping the sidewalks early in the morning, in case nature doesn’t do it for them. If it didn’t see so ludicrous or hopeless, I would walk around with a broom and do it myself. At least until we all stop making such a mess between storms.
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