This last winter was very, very wet. My favorite marsh trail was flooded knee-deep; the hills were full of surprise streams, mudslides, and ponds. The deserts have had their share of water as well. Washes and arroyos have been full to bursting. The porous desert sand gulped down the water as fast as ever, but in some places the ever-thirsty desert floor was actually satiated and water sat on the surface in ponds and pools. A decade's worth of waiting deemed done, the abundant water sign given, millions and millions of microscopic machines whirred to life. Construction began on rhizomes, roots, threads, and leaves; stems and stalks pushed toward the sun. The result has been marvelous! The desert is green with life. Yellow, white, purple, and pink flowers have opened their yawning mouths wide and are calling the pollinators to come and dine. Beetles, butterflies, birds, and moths have woken, too. They sense the chemical invitation, the molecular call of the waiting buffet, and they come. Some eat the petals, some drink the nectar, some eat the pollen itself, but all roll about in the sticky yellow abundance, like dogs in snow, guaranteeing future generations of flowers when the water comes again. It's beautiful and amazing. Of itself the super bloom is remarkable. If the desert sang so loudly every spring it would still be a concert worth attending every year, but its scarcity, the dearth that preceded it, makes it all the more remarkable, all the more alluring.
Three weeks ago I stood at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean along the edge of Anacapa Island, one of the smallest in the Channel Island chain. The island, while small, doubles in size below the ocean's surface. Buttresses of sedimentary and metamorphic rock transition from terrestrial, to intertidal, to marine. Sixty feet below the ocean's surface, tippy-toe on my fins, I tilted my head back and watched orange garibaldis and blue rockfish circle bronze-colored kelp. A seal swam by so fast that I almost didn't understand what it was. My dive buddy, a retired contractor named Steve, signaled for me to follow him around a buttress covered in maroon-colored seaweed. At the base of a large boulder covered in pink and lavender coralline algae an octopus trailed a purple arm out of his shell-strewn cave. Around another corner the buttresses and boulders gave way to an open meadow of sea anemones and iridescent blue seaweed. Kicking slowly against the easy current I stared at a world I'd determined to spend my life studying, but had never actually seen before now.
Yesterday I went hiking in Topanga Canyon near Malibu, California. The plants and flowers there are more or less the same as the plants and flowers of my home hills just 400 miles north. Even though the faces were familiar, the assemblage was different. Topanga has no cattle grazing the green hillsides, and dogs are not permitted in most of the state park. The result is more flowers, more birds, more butterflies, more everything! Because I was there during the work week, I had the trail nearly to myself. Soft, green caterpillars descended from the canopy on silk threads, spinning gently in the air like Cirque du Soleil performers. Rainbow spider webs criss-crossed the trail like finish line race tape. The shiny faces of California buttercups flashed and sparkled in the mottled shade. Honestly, it was so perfect, and so beautiful I just about cried.
Guys, it's raining in this desert, and every good seed, every little life machine is hissing and whirring and coming to life. And my heart is breaking! That old, shale-covered organ! That old heart that's been broken more times than I thought possible to survive is breaking again! But this time is different. This time it's breaking open. And I can do nothing but stand all amazed, full of wonder, as I watch this desert bloom.
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"...then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as noonday...and thou shalt be as a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." -Isaiah
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