Had a little rain last night.

Really? You don’t say.

We’re used to the regular deluge back east, especially lately. But here in the southwest, of course, raindrops are so rare as to be remarkable.

There hasn’t been any rain in Phoenix in months. And even when drops do fall, as they did for a bit yesterday, much of it is what’s called virga, precipitation that evaporates before reaching the ground. Today, even dry things glisten.

I walk among the rain-refreshed plantings in the desert garden.

Something we take for granted in the northeast: rain. Something they take for granted in the southwest: having a big honker of a saguaro right outside your back door.

The birds seem happy.

Munching prickly pear fruits.

I feel happy. Unwinding, unspooling, recharging my batteries.

I like to say I’ve been working so hard. But really, working? Does that make sense when you enjoy all the things you do? Maybe enjoying is better. I’ve been enjoying so hard.

Palo verde. How chartreuse can a plant be?

Everything is magnified here under the puffer clouds.

The fringe of mesquite.

So infinitely delicate.

A scatter of pods.

Does the saguaro know how ridiculous it looks sometimes?

Bougainvillea speaks to me.

Don’t work so hard. Don’t enjoy so hard. Fall into the petals of a flower. Nourish yourself. Here on the path, I’m all by myself. I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. So said Albert Einstein.

Not totally alone. Communing with a bee on the Mexican petunia. Mexican petunia? Invasive! Who cares? Not me, at the moment.

Speaking of invasive, palms.

They stretch themselves upwards. If it rains, it rains. If it doesn’t, they’re still there, holding the sky aloft.