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Community Corner

Springtime Arrives In The Desert

The seasons change in a different way in the desert.

When I was 12 years old I spent a year in Minnesota. I was amazed four times a year by the drastic changes of season.

You knew it was fall when the leaves hit the ground in shades of gold, russet and red. You knew summer was around the corner when afternoons would turn so humid that you could see your own body's dewdrops in reflections off of any shiny surface.

At that time, someone said to me: "You can't see the seasons change in the desert, what a shame."

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But I really disagree. As a native, I know exactly when the season's change. As a matter of fact, I can almost always pinpoint the exact moment. It's more subtle and less in your face, but that makes it more special, the fact that time and experience can make our bodies attuned to slight changes and the beauty in the un-extraordinary.

Fall arrives with a sudden clarity in the light glinting off the San Jacintos mountains and a richness imbued to their burnt sienna hue and  the sun becomes less wavy and omnipresent and more of a benign source of background warmth. Driving west along Highway 111 at 5 at night in the fall, it's impossible not to become infatuated by the glorious rosy, gold sky.

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Winter happens overnight when suddenly you step outside for your morning paper and realize the air is newly crisp and the ground cold. Everything starts to look silver under the sun's gaze, specifically the green fronds of palm trees and the sky turns blue over a mountain horizon delivering picture perfect cloudy mornings.

Summer comes like a wet blanket one day when you're sitting outside and realize that the heat is enveloping you rather than illuminating you. Everything starts to feel wrapped in a boa of musk and looking at ordinary objects outside like grass and rocks turns glaringly realist.

Spring arrives the most gently. It's a tiny shift in the air from stark to lofty, when suddenly you feel like you just got lighter in weight and you notice suddenly that the crickets are singing like an orchestra all around you. Patches of bare desert become carpeted with wheat colored grasses that smell slightly sweet like honey, and if we are lucky the purple and yellow wildflowers bloom. The mountains shed and lighten. Everything turns bubbly as if we are in a bowl of champagne: the air, the ground, the people, the animals. It's absolutely my favorite time of year.

I like to drive around and look for the wildflowers. This year I haven't seen too many and am curious if other readers have. It would be interesting to hear comments on where the wildflowers are this year, and if there are any at all. It seems we should have at least some areas of bloom with the copious amounts of rain we've had this year.

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