The WashHappy New Year! My last image of 2018. What a great year. One of my strangest first memories of moving here was the frequent flood warning signs that dot most of the roads. At first, I thought it was some peculiar Arizona humor. New friends assured me that it was not. People die each year in from the flash floods that rage down from the mountains during monsoon season. Still, having not yet experienced that most spectacular and renewing season of violent rainstorms framed by flaming shards of complex lightning I was skeptical. The only evidence I had to believe them was the numerous ravines of eroded land that the floodwaters left behind as they scoured through.
I've still not seen or experienced a flash flood, and I am good with that. Having witnessed the aftermath of the diestrus washed onto the roadways following one was enough to convince me of their power. Since then, the numerous washes that line the landscape have taken on new meaning to me. Dry and tranquil the majority of the year they are natural sculptures in the land. Their eroded walls tell a story of the history of the storms. To me, they are as much a part of the paradise that is the southern Arizona high desert as the mountains, cacti, forests, and wildlife, what is not natural though is seeing them covered in snow. Water in that form is as alien to their existence as it is to the rest of the desert.
I think that is why this image means so much to me. This is a year that has enlightened me to the extreme contrast between where I spent most of my life, the overpopulated NorthEast, and the Elysium of the Arizona high desert. At first out of place, I was a stranger in a strange land that I now comfortably call home. To my eye, I think the snow in the valley may feel the same. It was lucky to have fallen here.
This has been a year which has humbled me daily with the beauty of Gods creation. I am blessed to be His scribe.
The Wash
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