Clouds

painting by Tim Cox
www.timcox.com/

March 1, 2006

Gray clouds hang dark and heavy over the city. At daybreak today the streets were filled with large filthy puddles that cars splashed through noisily and people walked around or jumped over. Water dripped off grapevine branches on the balcony and drops hung precariously from several of the security bars before suddenly falling to the ground two floors below. It is March 1 in Kherson. We have seen the sun once in the past seven days, and with it a glimpse of blue sky before the clouds closed over once more.

About an hour after my 2.5 mile walk this afternoon, I took a 10 minute rest in the bedroom. Cheyenne came in, jumped up on top of my side and curled up in the hollow between my ribs and hip. As I lay there, eyes closed, I could hear the sound of splashing water as the cars rushed by out on Rosa Luxemburg Street. Almost immediately that sound brought to my memory a day in Woodland Park many years ago.

We lived on the corner of West Street and Highway 24, right in the heart of the little town center. That corner is now a business building and parking lot, but at the time we lived there a small gas station and the little summer cottage we rented were still in existence. Several times that summer we had a good rain shower and afterward I could hear the sound of the cars driving by on wet pavement as they rushed through town. I was much younger then, in my late 20’s, with three pre-school children at home all day, cooped up in the house due to the weather.

How well I remember looking out the front window on those rainy days. Woodland Park is situated in a Y-shaped valley near the top of Ute Pass. Directly to the east is a beautiful view of Rampart Range. I remember two things quite distinctly about that summer – the incredibly beautiful sight of the gray clouds drifting low and covering the top of the Range like wisps of whipped cream piled high, and the sound of thunder reverberating back and forth across the valley. Even today it brings happy shivers when I think about it.

There is nothing quite like a summer rain shower high in the Rockies of Colorado. Each geographical area has its own smell in wet weather or dry. I have special memories of the smell of rain on the hot prairie sand and grass out east of Colorado Springs, special memories of the smell of rain on the muskeg and tundra in Alaska. And yes, even special memories with the smell of rain here in Kherson. But none of those memories can compare to the memory of the smell of rain high in a mountain valley in the Colorado Rockies.

A summer rainstorm is usually a summer thunderstorm. Brilliantly white against a deep cornflower blue sky, the clouds billow high above the mountain peaks, roiling and growing ever higher and wider as warm air from the valley floors rises to meet the cold air above the highest peaks. The reflected sunlight from the brilliant white clouds is almost blinding, yet streaked against the flat bottoms is the first hint of gray and shadow.

One late summer Sunday afternoon in the early 1990’s we visited friends up at Sangre de Cristo Seminary, southwest of Westcliffe. As we walked out their front door the first thing we saw to the east were the biggest thunderhead clouds I have ever seen, forming over the hot prairies west of Pueblo, fifty miles to the east of us. The clouds rose thousands of feet into the air, huge columns of white, billowing and growing with incredible speed, reaching higher and wider at every moment. We drove back to our home in Westcliffe, watching the clouds the whole time. After eating a quick meal, we drove over to the cemetery west of town and parked in the open area where the view to the east was clear of buildings or lights. Several other people had arrived before us, and more arrived over the next two or three hours.

As the sun set in the west, turning the clouds from white to gold, to orange, and finally gray, we began seeing lightening flashing within the clouds. Huge bolts in pink and lavender were lighting up the clouds from within, while long, narrow bolts of yellow and white were shooting out of the tops of the clouds toward space. Directly above us and to the west the sky was completely clear with thousands of stars pinpricking the night sky with twinkling light. Absolute silence surrounded us, broken only by the occasional murmur of quiet voices or the sound of a car engine on the highway a mile away. As the clouds drifted to the east they continued to grow larger, not smaller, for almost two hours before finally drifting completely out of view behind the Wet Mountains. I knew that the beauty we were watching, the majestic power of God revealed in this small way in nature, was only part of the story. Surrounded by absolute silence, our eyes beheld incredible beauty. But underneath those clouds crashing fury reigned. We learned later that several small tornados touched down and hail caused several thousands of dollars worth of damage. Heavy rains also caused local flooding and lightening hit several buildings.