I miss living in the desert.

Spring appears to have arrived in Bend.  I’ve only lived here a few weeks and I can already identify the shift in the weather.  In fairly short order, the snow has turned to rain, and the rain has a.. dryness to it that reminds me of the monsoon rains in the Mojave and Sonora deserts.

It smells a little like home.  And it’s comforting.

I’m now surrounded by the odor of a desert coming alive.  This smell is quite different from the odor of the past three weeks.  It’s not as “cold” (even though the temperature still hovers around freezing at night).  It’s inviting.  It’s earthy.  It invited me to get out of my car in the middle of the desert today (some 40 miles east of downtown Bend) to experience the rain.

A lot of pain from the Long Winter I just lived through was washed away today.  Spring is finally here again.