Drunk on the Sun

photo by Josh Scholten

“The happiest field in all the harvest is the field of sunflowers at their peak.
Drinking the rays and dancing in the breeze.
The saddest field is the same field, six weeks later.
Drunk on the sun and burnt with shame,
they drop their heads to hide their mane.”
― R.S. Barrington

Two months of no rain has been unprecedented here in the northwest.  We have been dry as the plains states; tractors raise vast dust clouds as they harvest the fields around our farm.  Finally, finally, precipitation is predicted in the forecast for later this week.

It has been simply too much for web foot natives like myself.  We are so inebriated from an interrupted run of perpetually sunny days, we are unable to take in any more, bloated with Vitamin D, sickened with shame at soaking in more than our allotted share of rays.  We are at serious risk of solar withdrawal when the rain starts.  I’m already shaky at the thought of gray clouds.  Shorter days and foggy mornings might bring on the dry heaves.  Hallucinations could include parades of multicolored bumbershoots multiplying like Mickey’s brooms in Fantasia’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.   Someone will need to detox us with a full spectrum seasonal affective disorder light to taper us down slowly.

Growing up here, where sun and blue skies is a rare intoxicating treat, I found myself in utter overwhelm in California during my college years.  It seemed impossible to stay inside to study, conditioned as I was to celebrating every moment of sunshine.  Who could hunker down inside with a book when the sun is out?  Where were the gray misty mildewy days on end sitting cozy next to a blazing fireplace, reading vicariously of other lands of milk and honey?

Okay, enough is enough.  We’ve had our run, we’ve had our fun, we’ve had enough sun.  We are exhausted and in need of reprieve.

Let the rains begin.

And all the people said, “Amen!”

photo by Josh Scholten

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