Whether I Should Worry About The Weather

I find myself looking back over my writing and realising that most of my words are describing the weather.

How the sounds slip through the air or cut chasms into the sky. How the clouds paint, silky brushstrokes and angry slaps, gentle rolls and dabs. The blistering oranges and red at sunset and the pastel pinks at sunrise, the black clouds that suck light but are brilliant, striking and sinister all at once. I like the blue sky too, and nearly-still breezes and sun that strokes softly over my skin, over my face that faces the sky. Wind is strong in Taranaki, gusting and whipping and picking me up and taking me with in. It’s strong here in Christchurch too, but not quite as bad. I like it wistling in my ears when I bike and in like it picking up leaves and

seed-fairies and taking them anywhere and everywhere.

Yesterday was Monday, the start of a hectic week. I felt physically squashed under the weight of work for this week, under the overwhelming unknown of how I was going to do it all. And I biked home at the end of a long day, pretty fast, trying to dodge the inevitable rain, towards deep black clouds, illuminated by the sun behind me. Thick tar hanging in the sky, sagging. Sun struck like a gong on the clouds. Rattling my ear drums. A car drive past with the window open, “here comes the sun, do do do do”, playing on their stereo. Just before the sun was swallowed by the storm. Is it a metaphor for this week? I don’t know. Maybe the sun won’t shine and black clouds will hang and I will have to keep walking towards them and into them and maybe they will pass and I will see the sky soon.

Today it is Tuesday and I’m sitting in the sixth floor of a building at uni, raindrops on the window, grey clouds slowly thinning, watching the storm is quite beautiful, I know I am safe here, and I know it’ll all be ok. Because I have almost finished two days of this week and I’m still managing to put one foot in front of the other. The sunrise this morning was striking. If there aren’t clouds, the sun has no canvas to paint on. I went out onto the street in my dressing gown holding my camera and took photos looking down the road. Capturing the sky and all that sits below it, in beauty that just is.