Editor’s note: for the next two weeks we’ll be running the best of our This Ordinary Day pieces. We’ve enjoyed working with so many great writers and wonderful people and felt it was high time to take a look back at some of what they’ve brought us. If you’d like to see more pieces, please take a trip over to our archives page — it’ll be well worth your time.

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It rained last Thursday, which is a statement that wouldn’t be a big deal on the East Coast (my homeland), unless it was followed by something like “and my house washed into the Hudson River.”

But for the first time, I understand, at least in a small way, what it means to live in a drought in a climate that’s really only a step away from being a desert — and to finally get rain. Things are green in Colorado, but it feels forced, like the grass would be much happier to be brown and tough, thank you very much. My first impression of the state (after the mountains, of course) was of reddish rock and dirt and hardy scrubgrass. With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, clouds here are generally a tease. They gather and darken and look threatening, and then they dissipate, at which point someone in my house usually storms into the backyard, looks up at the sky and yells “Just DO it already!”

Because I’m from a climate where it rains fairly often, my gardening skills reflect that expectation. If I forget to water my tomato plants, they’ll be fine. It’ll rain soon. Except then it doesn’t, and my plants become things you can describe with adjectives like “crinkly.” Our neighbors have lawns; we have a dirt patch. I refuse to water grass in a semi-arid climate in draught conditions on principle. My students are embarrassed by this and covertly water the lawn when they think I’m not looking.

This summer has been dry, even for Denver. We’ve had 24 days in a row over 90 degrees, almost all of them sunny. We get teasing sprinkles, a few drops that splatter on the ground and practically sizzle away. We pray in our churches for rain for the fields, and I with my one crinkly tomato plant feel a sudden sympathy for farmers who truly rely on the rain for their living and their sustenance.

Last Thursday, I sat home alone, a few days after my summer community had moved out of the house. The clouds gathered and looked threatening, but they didn’t scatter. A cool wind blew in our open windows. As I lay on the couch journaling, I could hear a drumming sound on our metal awning in the backyard. The awning always makes it sound like it’s raining harder than it actually is, so I didn’t pay attention until the drumbeat got louder and more sustained. Finally, I got up and looked outside — it was pouring like I had never seen it do in Denver, the kind of pour where the rain just becomes a curtain of water. I ran outside excitedly, and quickly ran back inside when I realized how hard it was raining. So I stared hungrily outside the window, watching the water pool in our backyard dirt patch and stream down the driveway. I ran to close the windows at the front of the house, where rain was blowing in sideways and soaking our bookshelf.

It rained for hours, for the rest of the afternoon. The backyard threatened to flood, but the dry ground gulped down the water. At one point, the drumming on the awning became particularly violent and I looked out to see pea-sized hail filling the yard. But in that afternoon, the change was palpable. Everything seemed to be stretching and opening, almost relieved to be able to soak in the moisture. And I shared their relief. For a day, I didn’t have to be outside, doing, watering (or fretting about not watering). I could just sit, and be, and let nature do what I couldn’t to take care of the dry earth. My job was to just sit and soak it in, and let myself get a little less crinkly. I did it gladly.

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