Utagawa Hiroshige II (Shigenobu)
Paulownia Trees at Akasaka in the Evening Rain
(1859)

"I revel in my AutumnRains' reappearance."

Moisture well represents our Prosperity here in this desert steppeland, now trying to pass for Middle American town and pasture. It is beautiful here in springtime when this valley could pass for Ireland, after the Winter and Spring wheat conspire with the Canola to turn the late summer beige stubblefields into a checkerboard of Prosperity after the Winter rains, fogs, and snows have left our soils saturated. This country fasts through its Summers, often seeing no more than passing hints of its Prosperity through June, July, and August. It always feels dicey, as if we might not make it through to the AutumnRains each year. My friend Randal reports that he measured the driest August in at least the prior ten years, with only +.07 inches of SummerRain registered against -4.94 inches of evaporation. Through summers, we typically lose more moisture than we gain, straining our conviction that we didn’t really choose to live on the edge of a freaking desert. I keep my yard Middle American New England emerald, just the way God never once intended.

The AutumnRains return— if not precisely reliably, then inevitably—and they arrive like Prosperity returning from another harrowing Hero’s Journey. In the luckier years, these rains reappear just at Fair time, turning the Midway and rodeo arena into reliable mud pits and blessing us with some genuine cowboy curses. We know for certain that OrdinaryDays have returned when something this seemingly extraordinary occurs. It had come to seem unlikely that moisture might ever return. The patches of lawn the new automatic sprinkler system couldn’t reach had started yellowing again after the sod contractor came and replaced the stuff I’d inadvertently killed through my new equipment ineptness and/or my inattention. I regret installing the system, since it has not yet come close to satisfying my intentions and might never rise to that particular occasion. I fear it was designed for different climates, the kinds that favor Bermuda and other rough grasses that thrive on excessive humidity, anyway. It was clearly not designed for a place where Prosperity itself takes a sabbatical every goddamned summer.

The Hero returns a stranger, different from however he seemed when he left. He will prove incapable of telling a coherent story about his absence, since his audience knows nothing of adventure, only of absence, and seems shocked by the absolutely unbelievable nature of his tales. The audience remains inexperienced enough with this world not to believe in either dragons or witches, so the best stories our adventurer shares are lost on them. Prosperity, too, might just as well return mute. I have learned to ask few questions, for I feel as though Prosperity rudely abandoned me, and I am uncertain if I really want to continue the abusive relationship. The moisture softens my reactions a bit. I listen to the unfamiliar patter of a genuine drizzle on the roof instead of the deadening box fan fruitlessly shoving around dead air. I awaken reassured.

It took much of the day, since, as per usual, other imperatives appeared the instant I declared my intentions. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I could begin sterilizing the new equipment and setting up my processing line to finally begin crafting our first vintage of Mirabelle wine. Time stood still in recognition of the achievement, which might have seemed like nothing to any inexperienced observer, but which felt like something to this even more inexperienced practitioner. I am never worse than when attempting to follow an unfamiliar recipe. My CTSD kicks in, and I can’t make heads or tails of even the most exactingly sequential directions. I dog paddle between precarious positions, forgetting the intended sequence. I called on The Muse to supervise the ritual measuring of the chemicals, since I felt as though I would probably poison us with my confused response. I freed myself with repetitive motion; the plum pitter—our repurposed cherry pitter — worked great, clanking in reassuring rhythms. I readied twenty-five pounds and felt Prosperous when thoroughly embedded within the process, AutumnRains ticking on the back deck through the wide-open sliders.

How could my world seem so right again after seeming so convincingly wounded? The heat and smoke seemed to chase the moisture away this year and maintain an unbreachable barrier to its eventual reentry. When Prosperity reappears, it seems a stranger, a visitor from some fantasy world, lost from its own brand of inattention. Yet it slips right into the rhythm of the place. Hell, he readjusts the rhythm to suit his nature, redefining what it means for me to feel present and accounted for. What had been bounded with regrets becomes a blessing. I disabled the automatic sprinkler system this morning for the first time since we installed it last Spring. I look forward to using it more sparingly. How’s that for a definition of Prosperity? I figure it was probably best suited to sit there, blown out and dry for more than half of the water year here, a testament to a fantasy of Prosperity ultimately impossible to realize even with an artificial Prosperity machine. I will finish the second batch of Mirabelle wine preparation this morning, reveling in the freshly rediscovered sense of absolute Prosperity that effort affords me. Prosperity must have had one heck of an adventure in its absence this year. I revel in my AutumnRains’ reappearance.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz