Being Grateful and Letting Go

Yes, I am grateful for what I have. My family, my friends, my circumstances. But why is it, then, that so often I find myself wrapped up in a bundle of negative emotions over something that I really can't do much about. Case in point: I have lived in California most of my life. Every 7-10 years, we have an extraordinary drought in California and it is so front and center on the news that it eclipses all but the most tragic stories about real human suffering. This is one of those years. Reservoirs are dry, we are seriously draining the underground aquifers, we are all going to become dehydrated, crazed zombies if we don't cut our water usage, NOW, damnit! Next year, or the year after, it will pour buckets for five months and they will be letting water out of the damns at an alarming rate. Honestly, water has always been a major issue for California, a state that is basically pretty arid and gets all its precipitation in three or four months. Here are some dramatic pictures of one of our local reservoirs:

Lexington Reservoir in Spring After a Good Rainfall Year

The reservoir, which is visible as you drive over Highway 17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz looks like this in late Spring after the winter rains.  By the end of Fall, it usually looks more like the picture below:

This year, in the middle of a severe drought, in the middle of July, it looks like this:

So, I definitely get it. Next year it will look like the picture on the top. Again. Maybe. Or maybe not. So I did some research. In our area, average rainfall is 15.86 inches a year. Since 1893, 66% of the years we got less than 15 inches. Only a third of the years did we get 15 inches or more. And the distribution of dry vs. wet years was pretty even over the last 100 years. Here's another newsflash. California's biggest industry is agriculture and, in fact, we produce something like 50% of all the food produced in the U.S. Farmers need water to grow food. So it's not surprising that their water rations are not cut. And I really can't argue with that. 

Here's my beef: Today, it was announced that Alameda County was one of the few counties in the bay area that actually cut their water usage by 20% like we were all asked. But now the water agency has a revenue shortfall, so they are raising the rates. That is really ridiculous. And here's my other beef: All over the bay area, politicians and city managers are approving horrendous high-density housing on every available square inch of land. Drive around and you cannot avoid these monstrosities. They are literally everywhere creating much worse than just vista pollution. California doesn't have enough water, but let's shove 3,000 more people on every other street corner along Stevens Creek Blvd. from Cupertino to San Jose. Let's add 10,000 more people across from Santa Clara's Central Park in a site that was the old Kaiser Hospital. (Okay, it may not really be 10,000, but it sure looks like it. And oh, BTW, look at the pictures on the website. This ugly, ugly massive block of concrete doesn't look anything like the small individual homes they show on the website. What gives?)

And then I got it. Cover up all the ground with concrete and we won't have any need to water our gardens. Oh, wait, but what are we going to drink? Martini's!  Okay, I'm in. And I'm grateful once again!