Storm. Again.
Two days ago: The storm is far away still, gathering its forces out at sea. It pushes before it an awesome front: high winds, low pressure and gray black clouds. In the city, these are the first inklings of one more battle to come: the pressure drops visibly – the heart rate slows to an uncomfortable thudding. The birds fly past, seemingly in a miasma of damp lethargy. The smell of sulphur rises in the air. It is burnt and acrid, this fragrance of smoke and fumes. Don’t think of the funeral pyres. Who will light them in this coming storm? Stop.
The pressure continues to drop. Now the air stops moving, trapped by the energy bearing down from above. The wind is a separate entity, wanting nothing to do with the air. High above, the wind is rising, free and fierce but here, close to the surface, there is no air. The body is bound to the earth, there is no escape from this pressure. The skies churn a sickly yellow, the glare from the hidden sun triggering bad moods and bursting heads.
Last night: This unrelenting stand off between the high wind and the low pressure cannot sustain. It is spiralling just out of reach of forbearance when the storm front moves closer. The pressure falls, falls until there is nowhere left to go. The clouds appear, scudding in from the south. The wind, tired of its lonely game in the upper reaches, hoots down and in the course of an evening, we are on the outer reaches of the storm. It is still out at sea, it will spare us landfall at least, but it is a rude and rough creature for all that. The night passes in a tumble of fallen branches and ominous creaks and bangs from the construction site next door.
This morning: dawns with a clear grey light filtering through the banks of cloud. First there is the mistaken relief – no sulphurous catch in the throat, no throbbing head. The pressure finally gives in, plunges and the rain begins to fall. The first rain of a year beyond imagination. A year that was meant to be a renewal, a revival of all that is good and familiar – instead has become a year of vicious retelling, a re-imagining of our worst nightmares. The rain that falls this morning feels unwelcome, unwanted, acid. Don’t we have enough to deal with? A mischievous stormfront is uncalled for. Don’t think of those lost at sea, lost in the storm, lost to us this past year. Stop.
The storm is its own force and its own master. The wind blows a newly bloomed rose to shreds, the sparrows chitter softly in dismay as the rain intensifies and beats down on tiny wings. The air cools down, a different discomfort from the sweltering of the last days. This is clammy, shivering on the skin, clawing at the bones, leaving one in search of hot mint tea and a shawl. In May! Like everything else this year, it is easier to give up the struggle to comprehend the yawing contrast between then and now. It is a coward’s way out, this giving in, the accepting of that which is the new: sending prayers across a beleaguered land, but no one argues anymore with the vagaries of weather or fate. Don’t think of the protesters, the farmers, the young. Who will shelter them in the storm? Stop.
Mid morning: It feels like the storm has reached out and squeezed the life out of the day. The trees and the plants on the balcony are awash, the street dogs huddle under the cars, the city holds its breath while the storm decides. Will it stay? Will it continue on its havoc-strewn way?
The storm plays with us. Now the rain beats down in dirty grey sheets, now the wind stops its howling and all falls still. The wind picks up the game, until the trees bend much too far to be saved. It stops just in time, the trees creaking in weary protest. Then the rain is back, tattooing out its challenge, drumming down with anger and justice. Don’t think of a hard rain, a Vietnam rain, who’ll stop the rain? Stop.
The thought returns, as it has with increasing regularity these past few months: it could be me. It could be us. It could be our city, caught in the storm as it rages into landfall. This time, it may pass us by, it may bear down on another city, town, person. There, but for the grace of a vengeful God, go I. The guilt crashes in on that thought, but living with guilt is also a part of our new selves. For now, for the most part, we are indoors and dry – no, do not think of those hunting desperately for oxygen and hospital beds. Stop.
The storm is free to choose. We are a city already hunkered down, we can take the storm if it stays. Or we can shake it off, watch it disappear to the west and turn our attention back to the raging of death and life – the eye of the storm of our lives.
The stormfront moves on after the sharpest burst yet of wind and water. The sky shrugs off the gloom, the sun comes out. The sparrows chirp more cheerfully. The first rain of the year has come and gone.
Don’t think. Stop.
Later: The storm comes back, decides to stay.