Vancouver When It Rains

Vancouver is my home and it’s not my home; it could be anywhere. I could be anywhere. You are left alone; I am left alone — most of the time, whether I want to be left alone or not. This is not purely a matter of disinterest, no. People sniff around for a year or more, (You need that much time to invent elaborate rejection scenarios); donít scoff, no one ever died of being too timid.

We tried to have discussion groups at my college; it didnít work, people kept agreeing with each other too quickly. All this agreement, however, should not be confused with actual agreement. You can’t even take for granted that anyone is awake.

Still, I live here. I’m alone most of the time. It rains. Rain, however, is too simple a word to convey the full variety of wetness. There is, first, the darkness. Sometime in October the sun retreats. Light becomes depressed, muted, not its usual self. She gets lazy, heart broken. She’s unable to rouse herself until later, later in the day. Mornings start at eight, then at nine and then even later. What follows is a hung over version of brightness; muted, fuzzy-tongued grayness. You remember all your most embarrassing moments, in slow motion. It looks like used cotton balls, it hums with the soft whine could have been. It smells of regret. Rain.

There is the near rain, the come on and rain already, the light misting, the “it’s good for your skin”, the swirling torment, the darkness but no rain, the bog, (the relatives who come for a visit and then donít leave and they don’t find work either). There’s the steady pissing down rain slowly eroding what’s left of your nose, your shoes and your self-control. Thereís the gusty rain that destroys umbrellas on contact. Thereís the slightly heavier but not yet full rain thatís just enough to confuse taxi-drivers, who blockade the street. Thereís the constant rain — a house full of toddlers and their steel drums.

Nothing dries out, not ever. After a week, after two, after three, you understand introversion. After four, after five, after six weeks, you understand pessimism.

The rats are catching cold; poor things have little red noses. You consider what you can do for them, lacing the garbage with menthol maybe. I’ll tell you what there is not. There is no warm, tropical rain. There is no big bang rain, something noisy, something dramatic, something that’s over quickly and makes you feel cleaner afterwards.

There’s no clap of thunder, either. These are rains that make you excessively polite, self-protective and observant (what else to do?).

Extra:
Montreal in the Summer by Nick Bitzas (Canada).