Kia ora Koutou,
It’s a lovely morning as I sit down at the computer. Rain fell yesterday, not as much as I would have liked but at least there was some. I remembered how many times I’ve wanted rain and how many times I’ve wanted rain to stop.
One of the times I wanted rain to stay away was when my kids were little. I wanted to hang the nappies out in the sun, see the lines fluttering with white flags, all saying I think we’re winning against the odds. And you all know that wonderful feeling of taking warm dry nappies off the lines, folding them up, putting them away, happy you’ve staved off the dreaded going to the cupboard and finding you’re down to one or two and its pouring outside and the baby has a tummy upset… I can remember washing them (nappies not the baby) in the tub, and hanging them, wet, from lines in the kitchen where the trusty wood and coal range would gradually dry them out hard and stiff, so unlike the soft and cuddly way the sun did, but at least clean and dry.
Rain is also the title of a W Somerset Maughan short story which, as I remember it, was about a lady trying to turn a prostitute away from her chosen career. I remember sniffing at that idea in the same way I sniffed at stories of missionaries going to China or Africa to save various peoples there. What damned cheek, I thought, then later, when I knew the word, what arrogance. I had realised even then that outsiders who waltz into a strange environment where everything is run differently, where different beliefs and customs exist, where other things are held sacred or not sacred, and these outsiders, blind to personal or local beliefs and customs, have the gall to think they know better and end up doing great harm as well as getting rich on land sales or taking kids into so-called ‘care’ because the mother wasn’t keeping the house as clean as someone thought it should be.
Rain fell in bucketfuls that night on the farm we were working on and we kept the wood and coal range going all night and the shepherd and young rousy knocked at the door, shivering, wet and miserable – the old whare they were sleeping in got flooded because the roof had holes in it and as well it wasn’t as high off the ground as the house we lived in. The boss and his wife and family were asleep in their house over the rise and missed this drama. I remember the amazed delight in their eyes when we showed them the bathroom, gave them towels and blankets, put their wet clothes over a line in the wash house, while the chooks we had rescued earlier, sat in boxes looking suspicious. Back in the kitchen we passed around mugs of hot soup and thick slices of buttered toast and jam.
‘Like a party,’ said the young rousy, taking a second slice of toast.
‘Except no hangover,’ said the shepherd.
Rain usually falls on my birthday but that’s no surprise. It rains more often than not in July.
And then there’s the rain that good old Matthew predicts will fall on the just and the unjust — and ‘the just passing’ I added centuries later in a poem I wrote.
When we want rain we bless it when it falls and then when it stops we either moan because we’ve not had as much as we think we should, or we celebrate the fact that its stopped by going out for good walk, smiling at those we pass, who’ve had exactly the same idea.
There’s that soft sweet rain that falls so gently on the ground where we’ve just planted lawn seed and there’s the tumultuous downpour that sweeps all the seeds away and leaves a huge muddy puddle for us to clean up and re-sow.
There’s the back door opening and three kids tumbling in wet through, laughing and grabbing the towels I hand them, ignoring my command to stop fooling about and go and get changed and STOP flicking their brother with a wet towel, the game that usually ends up by me shouting that if they don’t stop fooling around this very minute there will be NO biscuits and NO hot cocoa. A threat they ignore because my voice has not yet reached the pitch they recognise as the danger level which signals their mother is definitely on the verge of putting the biscuit tin away and ignoring all pleas and excuses such as – ‘It wasn’t me Mum, I was trying to stop them.’
There’s the wonder of taking off wet shoes and coat at the door, grabbing a towel, combing wet hair, sticking the heater on, making tea, sitting down and sipping and sending that oh so fatal message to oneself, ‘I’ll just have a little read before its time to get dinner going….’
Renée
