The rain followed me to L.A. Boulder traded theirs for snow.
A flood of drizzle blankets the city in a never-ending pelt, cleansing the town of its dry dust; now swiftly moving into the sewers and out to sea.
Other than the traffic, which ebbs even slower when water abounds, there isn’t much that can’t be found in other metropolitans under a downpour – the people running, newspapers above heads, colorful umbrellas, crowds shivering under stoops and covered bus stop benches. However, there is one despotic change – the smell. Some sort of scented emanation has erupted; wherever I am – chugging up along Fairfax, gunning it on the 110 Highway – I am hit with a redolence of rosemary, jasmine and dense earthy dirt. As it happens, everything has turned darker – with the sun no longer shining, the bark of trees soaked to black – and the contrast sets the greenery on fire; the greens greener, the yellow leaves yellower.
This sort of approximate weather change occurs each year; the sudden transition from summertime heatstroke to chilly torrential downpour strikes the line between Summer and Fall, and suddenly we’re swathed in wool coats and cashmere sweaters when a week prior, weekends meant neon bikinis and surfing at the beach. Though the weather is expected to be temporal and therefore hardly marks the Fall season inasmuch as the yellowing and falling leaves in the Midwest. Likewise, it is the beginning of a season that goes mostly unrecognized in Los Angeles – that is, unless a mudslide or fire threatens to drown us in a different sort of downpour.
Despite the decorous scenery and enchanting aroma, which seem to occur on the precipice of any sort of jeopardy (i.e. recent red dust storms in Australia), each weather change invites a new hazard. For those recently travailed with fires, they now face another endemic adversity – that of mudslides. California is indeed a concrete jungle – if the taxes don’t kill you (or the people, or the traffic), Mother Nature might.
NO SAINTS IN L.A. 