To be read on a grey February afternoon, when the darkness of winter seems interminable
I love that this piece on rain should be inspired by pondering a lack thereof. I have been stood in my bedroom, hairdryer in one hand, cleaning cloth in the other, unsure of what to do. You see, on this beautiful grey Sunday morning, I find myself trapped in a predicament that is representative of nothing less than the global struggle for water. That is the struggle of having too much of it in one place and not enough in another. On one hand, there is the water stain above my bed that grows every time it rains, expanding its damp centre further and further across the wall, its edges blooming into finely undulating, brown lines on white background. Its slow but steady expansion points to expensive structural damage on our roof and has been causing nightmarish visions of waking up covered in a brown sludge from a pipe that couldn’t take another drop. On the other, there is the massive yellowish seagull turd that has become encrusted on one of our slanted roof windows due to a lack of rain, throwing an ominously gloopy shadow on our bed sheets whenever the sun is out.
Sunshine is actually a more frequent phenomenon in London than popular opinion would have you believe. In my personal myth-busting crusade, the misperception about London being rainy comes only second to the myth that German trains run on time (please!). And if you won’t believe me, read the numbers. The average annual rain fall in London amounts to 585 mm per year compared to 1211 mm a year in Sydney!
While I usually revel in London’s dryness, I wouldn’t mind a brief deluge now because it would save me from confronting the question of how far I would go to please my landlord (henceforth Mr L.). Let me elaborate: After reporting the water stain and potential pipe bursting to our letting agent, Mr L. announced a flat inspection for the following week to get a better picture of the damage. This will be the first time I come face to face with the person to whom I have been submitting the biggest portion of my 9-to-5 earnings every month for the best part of four years.
Given landlords’ god-like powers in the UK (put you out on the street with only one month notice, no problem! Increase rent by £500 from one month to another, no big deal! For more depressing facts, read Tenants by Vicky Spratt), I am basically readying myself for an encounter of biblical dimensions. How fitting that the entire meeting will be accompanied by a low-level threat of a flooding.
In preparation, I am trying to find the right balance between not making the flat look too nice, lest Mr. L. should decide he could charge more rent, while simultaneously displaying so much love for the property, that Mr. L. won’t be able to help himself but leave the flat to me in his will.
But where or where does the seagull turd come in on this?
Given how much I am already sacrificing for the flat, and by extension Mr. L., something in me refuses to climb on a chair, lean out of the window in the most awkward fashion and scrape away at a bird turd. I guess it’s this last bit of stubborn pride that has had me stood here for the past 15 minutes. This and the aforementioned, not insignificant feeling of having a conflict of global proportions play out in my head. Imagine the fierce longing for sunshine by a bride on the eve before her July wedding on one hand, and the prayers for water by the mayor of Barcelona about to announce water rationing because of drought (yes, climate change is happening) and you’ll get an idea of the intensity of conflicting feelings I had faced with the pipe-vs-turd conundrum. Just before I was to burst into two, a tiny splatter on the slanted window announced that the rain had made up its own mind, relieving me of what felt like an impossible choice.
This left me with two options. I could immediately start fussing / blow-drying around the water stain in a futile attempt to impede its further expansion. Or I could take a moment to feel glad about the rain. Spurred on by everyone’s complaints about the rain at this time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I opted for the latter.
For starters, I love the ‘out-of-my-hands’-ness of whether it will rain, making the distribution of rain achingly unjust and satisfyingly just all at once. As far as I am aware, money still can’t buy rain, which makes it perhaps one of the last equalisers in this world.
I love waking up from the sound of rain on my slanted windows – a perfectly delicious excuse for staying in bed a little longer on a Sunday morning.
I love the little drops the rain leaves behind on everything.
I love how it makes the sound of the cars driving past on the street more ambiguous, like perhaps they aren’t cars after all.
I love how for those of use who are marked by a rainy childhood, every sunny day becomes a precious jewel that needs to be marvelled at and celebrated, ideally with an impromptu BBQ regardless of the temperatures.
I love how rain offers every German anywhere in the world the opportunity to obnoxiously display a disproportionate level of meteorological stubbornness: There is no bad weather, only wrong clothing.
I love how rain increases the lure of getting home to dry socks and a cup of tea by a ten-fold.
I love how the small trickle of rain that seeps through our bathroom window frame when the wind blows from the East, washes away any form of jealousy for the person who owns this place.
I love how unexpected, torrential rain drenches you when you get caught in a storm on your cycle back from work, uniting you and all other cyclists in a primal feeling of survival and soaking-wet underpants.
I love how the rain makes me cherish the plastic bag I brought to wrap up my dripping umbrella while pressed into the armpit of a fellow commuter on the morning train to work. Because while I did perform a humiliating dash to make it onto the carriage before the doors closed, at least I’m not soiling my trousers with a wet umbrella like some kind of animal.
I love the smell of rain. And not only the summer rain kind of smell that you can buy online (what is there in this world that we won’t bottle and sell?!), but also the musky smell of damp clothes. Because it is the battle against this smell, that’s made me a regular at my local launderette’s self-service tumble-dryers, which I can afford now. Which in turn led me to ‘THE seamstress’, who fixed my ripped coat so expertly, so magically, that for a moment I believed she could fix all the other parts of my life that seem irreconcilably disjointed, such as my today self and my retired self, or my renting self and my home-owning self and so by sheer proximity to such greatness, every tumble-dry cycle leaves me with the exquisite feeling of expertly taking care of myself.
But as an awkwardly-direct-verging-on-rude person (read: a German in the UK), what I love most about rain is that however many thoughts I have about my landlord’s multi-property empire and the fact that he increases our rent each year – making sure we never forget that we don’t live in a home but inside an opportunity for profit maximisation – I can always fall back on the rain as an innocent conversation starter during our first encounter.
Now I better start blow-drying that damp spot.
At least the bird turd is gone.
Thank heavens!
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