Waiting for Rain

 

You would think that day after sunny day would be welcomed, but this is rainy season and every day we wait for rain.

Waiting in most cases involves resolution; the end of the line, the beginning of the movie. Waiting for rain, like waiting for true love, requires daily vigilance and dashed hopes. One watches the sky, looking for clouds. Where are they coming from, which way is the wind blowing, are the thunder heads building, are they headed this way? Sometimes the rain comes tantalizingly close and you can smell the earth. Certain that the next moment the drops will fall, you stand in the doorway, and then it passes you by…hopes dashed.

Rainy season should begin in mid-May. People who have lived here all their lives will tell you, May 15, Dia del Santa Cruz, it rained. By June, the rain would come every day to refresh the plants and wash the streets.

It is near the end of June and we have had only one big downpour. The weather in May was hotter and windier than usual. It is past the summer solstice and still the rains have not returned. The plants are confused, all these hours of daylight and no water at our feet. People all over the world are suffering from weather that is out of the ordinary. It leaves one wondering what to expect, restless, kind of itchy, sometimes despairing and waiting for the great relief of a rainy day.