It was raining in the desert today. The clouds dressed the sky in its Easter best and the air was sticky and sweet with the familiar smell of creosote. You can smell rain in the Sonora miles away.

You can see it coming in the deepening sky. Feel the change of texture in the air. Hear the rumble of the clouds. But it’s the creosote you remember. The smell of rain. Heavy and earthy and pungent. It’s like the smell of spring. It’s like the smell of sex.

It’s the smell of life in a place oppressed. The desert is green right now. The ocotillo and the cholla and the palo verde in bloom. The desert sounds like laughter from all the birds.

I love the smell of rain in the desert.

But the smell reminds me of her. It reminds me of what I want. And what I do not yet have. Of what may or may not become.

The smell of rain is the smell of change. It’s the smell of opportunity. It’s the smell of hope.

Hope is a powerful intoxicant. There is no life without hope. No nourishment. No motivation. You never grow. But too much hope and you never live. You never learn. Too much hope can choke you and make you afraid, keep you rigid and frozen with indecision. Too much hope and you can be crushed under the weight of your own desire.

So I’ll sit on this patio and watch the sun setting, a psychedelic celebration before the release of night. I’ll sit here alone, the smell of spring and hope and her in my head. And I’ll know that tomorrow life will go on, and I will go on with the hope that, maybe, someday, she will go on with me. And I won’t need to hope any longer.