Life is fragile
Last weeks were the hottest of the year. In the morning the air feels a little fresh – relatively because when you look on the thermometer you never find it under 30 degrees. In the afternoon temperatures can reach more the 45 degrees.
But since some time you feel it: rainy season is coming back. Air is becoming heavier and more humid. It already rained two times. This evening there is a very heavy tempest on the other side of the mountain chain I live very close to. It is impressive to observe this strong weather from a distance. There are lighntnings every second and everything gets clear for a moment – I can´t hear the thunder because I am still too far away. As very often during bad weather conditions there is a power failure and everything is dark inside and outside the house. The most impressive meanwhile is the wind. Most of the time it blows just a bit but from time to time a very strong whiff literally smashes through the landscape. Trees are beaten suddenly, the air is full of dust, leaves and sparks are flying all around, the houses moan and some risk to get destructed by the wind.
When you are outside and the wind hits you it´s like feeling many things at one moment: the wind is fresh and therefore a kind of relieve after the sticky heat of the day. You feel like you may fly away with the wind wherever you want to – but someway you are still too heavy. It´s very exciting. Some dust may blur your vision and in the darkness I also feel a kind of fear. It´s similar to the fear I knew when I was a child. I think that I get used to tempests in Europe where houses surely will resist against rain and wind and lightning, were electricity almost never fails, where you still can go wherever you want by car. Here this is different: Water is often flooding your house when it rains strongly, you are never sure that your roof will stay over your head or that a neighbours roof may fly away. Windows may break. There usually is no more electricity. Most of the roads are not passable anymore and anyway, you don´t want to go anywhere by motorbike in this weather. People stay in their houses in a kind of retreat. Family becomes the intimate space where you find coverage and people who share this experience very closely.
I really enjoy to observe this kind of weather and to live the kind of retreat. I remember when I was a child, afraid of what may come because I wasn´t sure about it and at the same time fascinated by the raindrops that felt in puddles again and again performing a kind of liquid dance on the stirred surface. Very often I think that life here is more fragile and therefore more essential, more perceivable, more immediate… You are never sure that the car you are in will reach its destiny. You may be asked to transport a child to the next hospital and its breath sops several times during the trip and you realise that life may be short. It is the same way all over the world but here it seems more evident that life is fragile. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why life here sometimes seems to me more intensive then elsewhere. Life blows through me like strong wind and it appears in flashes like the lightning. It makes me afraid and I enjoy it… wind is blowing - let it in...
