November Rain

I was going to write about something serious today, but then the rain came... And here I am inclined for a eulogy of the weather... And honestly, I don't even like bad weather that much!

I freeze when it's cold, I get down under the weather (only the English to have an expression like this!) when days are colourless, I feel all sticky when it's foggy, furious beyond measure when it's windy, I've broken and lost so many umbrellas I don't have one anymore, I hate having my boots all wet when it snows and have water coming in my shoes when it rains. The only thing I really like about bad weather is those awful, frightening and monstrous thunderstorms. One or two thunders is not a storm. No, it has to be those crossed storms, lightening and thunder simultaneously. Apocallipse on Earth! That's my groove.

But today the rain came...

I opened the door and everything was gleaming. It had rained during the night, silently, softly. The rain came unannounced, gently, as a visitor. It left its mark on the garden and on the pavement. It left its mark in the air. That sweet and warm smell we only get when the first rain falls. A smell of earth and grass. It smells like the colour brown, for if colours had a scent this would be the one of brown: wet soil, brownish vegetation and dead leaves on the ground.

The rain came...

And I was missing it. I was missing the change of seasons. Like some primeval creature still attached to Nature, the creatures we forget we are in the midst of super-abundant civilization, I was missing it. I was getting exhausted by the frenzy of summer, that wild contagious energy that was still hanging in the air. Now I feel like just sitting still, coming home, getting lazy and let Nature take its course.

In my mind there's a letter Eça de Queirós wrote when he was in Newcastle complaining about that water-impregnated weather of the British Isles: "É o clima, é a horrível hostilidade exterior da Natureza [...] que faz com que esta raça viva sempre dentro de si mesma, e, em lugar de tomar como objecto de contemplação e de inspiração a natureza exterior, tome a sua própria alma". I guess I'm a bit spleenetic today, but departing from the gentle rain I long for some contemplation in the warm, comfortable seclusion of home.

I'm happy the rain came...

Quote: Eça de Queirós, Correspondência, vol. 1, INCM, 1983, p. 92.