By Amethyst

We stood, naked, arms outstretched, and waited for the summer storm. No, we did not seek a natural baptism from a perceived “original sin of civilization.” Rather, we simply sought to relieve ourselves of that uniquely human sense of being unclean after hours of work. Though covered in its iron-red clay and innumerable flakes of its trees’ detritus, the land had already refreshed our sense of accomplishment. We now sought the well known and comfortable refreshment of a shower.

And so we stood. We had run out of clean water (like we imagined real hippies also often did), and our resourcefulness and open mindedness told us to embrace the rain, not to hide from the storm clouds.

And so we stood.

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As it winds eastward from Cumberland, carving equally well the soft shale of what is still called coal country and the white granite of the world’s most powerful city, the Potomac turns briefly northward before returning to its gradual southeasterly flow. It is along this northward diversion that our own little mountain to heaven, Parnassus, sits. It is inexplicably unconcerned with the timing of a summer storm. Just to the west of this part of the Potomac, troubled even less with the comings and goings of clouds, is a ridge of the great Appalachian mountains, half again as high above the distant ocean as is our little paradise. And though we call it a mountain, really it is a foothill to another ridge just to the east.

As they do over every paradise and hovel on this earth, the clouds move in from west to east. We see them in the afternoons, just over the ridge, threatening. We feel the winds flow across the Potomac, bringing cool air quickly across the valley as the weather changes. But our cumulonimbus friends, with hubris opposite that of Icarus, are too close to those ridges, and the winds squeeze them northeast, around the mountain. Route 40 is often very wet, have you noticed?

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And so we stood. Half an hour, soaped up, ready. Our resourcefulness, open mindedness, and sense of adventure was not accompanied by anything resembling a degree in meteorology, nor even had we even briefly considered the above topography.

But then, the rains came. We lathered, danced, and were clean.