Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Rain

Rain, rain, rain, beautiful rain. I've said this word so many times now it's currently undergoing a process of semantic bleaching in my head. Rain. But seriously, you don't realize how much you miss a good rain until after a month and a half of constant sunshine and blue skies it tumbles down on your doorstep in rolling clouds of thunder, banging on your door crying, "Let me in! Let me in! I'm here to wash all troubles away!", which in this case has a very literal meaning.

Maybe living in Glasgow for five years has made me particularly partial to rain. Funnily enough though listening to the pitter patter of rain immediately takes me back to Jijoca, Brazil, sitting in the damp sand under a palm thatched roof, intently watching the waves of the lake, the wind, the dancing palm trees, the billowing clouds, eagerly waiting for God to show his mighty hand through a terrifying and pulchritudinous act of nature. I must have been ten or eleven.

Here, the rain is comforting. A pleasant drumming fills the silence and muffles the noise of angry traffic. More importantly, rain is warm, and a sign of warmer days to come. The roads are cleaned, the air isn't dusty, people stay in their homes and don't get in your way as you cycle to work. It's not quite monsoon season yet, that'll be in another couple of months, but green life is already emerging. Potholes fill up with water and give roads an air of paved smoothness, and at the end of the day the city emerges cleaner and fresher, beautifully illuminated in the glow of the mountains and the setting sun's rays of sunshine peeking through the clouds. 

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