Not Quite Real

Arise! Arise! (And Windy Weather)

Blogs and I have had a long and troubled relationship. One minute we’re deeply infatuated, the next - well, I’ve forgotten about them. No doubt this one is going to go the same way, but I really don’t want it to. Dammit, I’m going to write this thing, and nothing is going to get in my way. 

Not even the Pirates of the Caribbean 3-esque storm that is rocking England at the moment. It’s kind of blown over here at the moment, but man, last night it was the sort of weather that causes good men and women to don sou’westers and steer fishing boats through rolling waves. I love rough weather. Something about the sound of rain against the window and wind blowing around the building awakens the pirate in me, and I lie in bed listening to it and dreaming up stories. 

Or I go outside and immediately regret it. Windy weather is fine, but wind and rain is a special kind of pleasure for the person inside, but a special kind of torture for those travelling. A kind of soggy camaraderie develops at bus stops and in lobbies of buildings where people shelter from the rain. The most pitied are those with large bags, which one imagines are full of non-waterproof goods. Expensive technology, or prized manuscripts, or… soap are turning to nonfunctional goop while the poor person lugs them around the rainy city. You watch them avoid puddles like landmines, and walk with the brisk panic of someone cold and wet and late and worried. 

Then there are the parents and children. The parents are tired, and the children are either deeply miserable about the weather, or relishing in it like only a small child can. The former involves crying, and repeated pleas to be carried, and the latter involves splashing, and raincoats, and jabbing passers by with small umbrellas, and hasty apologies from the parents. They seem to be in a lose/lose situation, and can’t wait to get back to a warm house and cup of tea and small muddy wellington boot prints all over the carpet which they just cleaned yesterday, and getting a child out of a raincoat (which seems to be a spatial puzzle of Escher like proportions) and oh god the work and stress and why didn’t I listen to Julie when she said never have kids and why didn’t we just stay inside and watch Bob the Builder I think I could have coped with that. Poor parents. 

We sit at the bottom of the pity hierarchy. Bedraggled, wind blown, tired. We slump in tube trains with a desolate silence somehow even more miserable than the usual one. We slip on the wet floors. We emerge from tube exits and raise our collars and sigh as our umbrellas are blown inside out. 

All over the country people are having days like this. Sure, we get cold and wet and miserable, but there’s something a little more dramatic about it than dreary grey days. We’re brought together by zippers and galoshes and umbrellas and footprints on slippery floors, and “I’m sorry I’m late, have you been waiting long” and packed coffee shops and brief moments of warmth and dryness. 

Being outside isn’t so bad, perhaps. 

Photo: A Storm at Sea, Pietro Muler