Joy in Times of Rage
It does not rain in Los Angeles, though there are people out there who will try to convince you otherwise.
They will bring up those mornings in June when the marine layer sweeps in from the west, bearing down a fog that attempts an active precipitation in the same way a politician from Maine attempts empathy. They will remind you of that week last March with the floods, oh god those awful floods, their memory at once absorbed in the water-logged plight of counties farther north. They may even mention that sodden winter 40 years ago when Malibuan homes swam toward the Pacific, who could forget, and who, mind you, would argue with a mudslide?
These people will have lied to you.
And yet, there I was on a Wednesday afternoon, watching my windshield wipers dance and squeegee in horizontal can-can, thinking it impossible that a more erotic thing could exist on this plane or any other. I caressed the window like I would a lover returned from war; its tempered pane, chilled to my touch, sent me into somersaults. The road grew dark. The air thickened with petrichor. I realized, in dumb abandon, that a thousand-league grin had found temporary housing on my face. But there I was, joyous.
It is irresponsible to call these times dark. If…
