{a student's account of life in El Paso}

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Hope

If you know one thing about where I live, it's that I live in a desert. And if I were to tell you one fact about what deserts are like, it's that deserts are dry. Very dry. 

It takes a while for the body to adjust to life in a desert when you first get here. Your hair gets really greasy because your body is trying to compensate. Your nose becomes a mucous factory, yet still manages to get cracked and irritated. Your skin starts flaking every time you scratch it. It's quiet the ordeal. 

It might seem like moving to a desert would be the last thing on everyone's list because of the inconveniences: flaking skin, dust that gets into every crack and corner, temperatures so hot your pores expel all the water in your body the second you step out the door, winds that blow hard enough to give you miniature welts from the sand it throws against your body, and the list goes on. Yet there is one thing that makes living in a desert worth it: desert rain. 

For those of you who living in a place that has a rainy season and you get drenched, flooded, and all out sick of this water-falling-from-the-sky phenomenon, you might not understand. But when you live every day under the beating hot sun, day in and day out, there is a certain sense of excitement when there are rain clouds on the horizon. Even though most of the time the rain detours around us, there is a spark of anticipation when the dark clouds start looming. But what really stirs up hope is the smell. Though few and far between, clouds come and go. But when you can smell the scent of rain, hope blossoms. 

When it smells of rain, it hardly matters what you had been in the middle of doing, it draws you outside. The other day I had planned to go to bed early, but when I smelt the rain I ran outside and sat on the fence to watch the clouds darken the sky and wait for the rain. There is always the possibility that the rain won't come, and here in El Paso, the possibility that it won't rain is a lot higher than the opposite. But probability is of little consequence. When there is the smell of rain, hope is in the air. Even if rain doesn't fall, we are reminded once again that there is something other than dryness. We are reminded of the possibility of something different. We are reminded that dust isn't the end all and be all of life. There is hope. 

O God, You are my God; I earnestly seek You.
I thirst for You, my whole being longs for You
                   in a dry and weary land where there is no water. ~Psalm 63

No comments:

Post a Comment