Your lips are so cracked they look like jeep tires. Everything is dusty and dry. The air smells like wildfire smoke and tired earth. It’s winter and you are in Johannesburg, South Africa – where I grew up.
But then, like clockwork, September comes. The guy from Green Day had it wrong. If he was South African, he’d never wait until the end of September to be woken up. Because everything changes. The sky darkens to a deep, dramatic blue, with clouds of cinematic grey. The world quiets. The birds form ominous patterns in the sky, warning: something is coming. The thunder demands to be heard. The lightning commands a crowd. I love the rain back home because it doesn’t sneak in – it announces itself. It’s rare. It’s special.
So, I say, don’t just let it rain, let it pour. Let it swelter and storm. Allow me to brave the tempest, get tormented by the thunder. Let the skies throw a tantrum. Come on and shake my world. Because it’s so much better than the pitter-patter of soft rain. Please just not another grey Dutch day.
Growing up, I believed the weather was a well-rehearsed theatre production. The sun and the clouds, the rain and the thunder are all actors in this annual play. They know all their lines and choreography. Each season a new act, always on cue. It’s precise and predictable.
Then I moved to Groningen.
The rain here doesn’t fall politely. It lurks, it lingers. The skies stay grey so long you forget that blue was ever an option
Suddenly, weather wasn’t just something I checked before going outside, it became the thing that shaped how I felt inside. The rain here doesn’t fall politely. It lurks, it lingers. The skies stay grey so long you forget that blue was ever an option. I felt like a wet sock trying to dry on a balcony but it just keeps raining.
I realised just how much I rely on external things – sunlight, warmth, a predictable sky – to determine my mood. And what happened when those things were taken away? Not much. Quite literally. I went into a static state, a dormant seed waiting for better weather to be in a better mood. Plot twist, the weather doesn’t care about your mood, so why should your mood care about the weather?
I never had to build that kind of emotional muscle before. But Groningen showed me that if you don’t change, you’re not doing it right. Each season demands something of you. Autumn asks you to let go. Winter dares you to endure. Spring rewards you for sticking around. Summer (all two weeks of it) throws a street party to thank you for your patience.
The weather here might not be the Broadway play it is back home; it’s more like a homeschool improv theatre. Chaotic, but with the right company, violently funny. So, I say: let the rain in. Just maybe not through the ceiling again, my landlord still hasn’t fixed that.
CARLA ERASMUS