Garden Day: Droughts vs. Floods

There has been a torrential flood of rain lately, which is good for Julie and Jarad because they are not obligated to water their plants on rainy days (Uncle Morty is, of course, blithely indifferent). Let's just say we appreciate the break. Julie is ruminating on all this wetness today. 

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I hate a dry garden. We had a few weeks without rain here in Atlanta and it makes me sad for the plants. The seedlings sit quietly, curling up into themselves, no more leaping upwards. Every breeze that shakes the tree leaves in the heat seems like a choking prayer for rain. The birds flutter out against their better judgment to get a quick drink when I water the seed beds. Relentless sun, in the south, feels like a slow, creeping death. It’s hard to breathe.

​Now the rain has started again. There’s mud dripping down the brick retaining wall, who knows where my seeds have floated off to. There’s a puddle the size of a pond at the end of the patio and broken branches in the front. But the opposite of drought does not terrorize me in the same way. How much better to be swept away than to desiccate and disappear. How much more I prefer the excess to the lack.  I can remember the little creek in front of my aunt’s house when I was a child, as a rule it was mild-mannered, cheerful, bubbling along brown rocks, through green banks in the summer sun. I was never more sad than when heat and dry weather made it less cheerful, smaller, nervous. And how I loved the excitement of wet weather, when it filled up and raged down the meadow, dark and muddy threatening to take the little bridge with it.
 
I’m taking a long drive today. As much as I don’t like driving in bad weather, I have to admit the thrill of watching the water on the roadside as it laps up the meadows, breaks from the ditches, and rolls away sticks, leaves and abandoned cups. I love to watch the trees dancing wildly at the sight of it. I almost love the little ripple of fear that comes with the clouds lighting up like a cracked and glowing alien egg.
 
Maybe someone should formulate a personality test that takes into account whether you prefer drought or flood. I wonder what it would say about me?

​Julie Carpenter is the creator of the Sacred Chickens website.  She is dedicated to telling stories and making sure that indie writers and publishers have a way to be heard.  She uses narrative, her own and others’, to help interpret the world. She has a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Memphis, with an emphasis in Composition Theory. She wants to bend reality one story at a time.  Julie’s work has appeared in Fiction on the Web and will be included The New Guard. She is currently working on a novel.

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