Minutiae
So the house-sitter is a pot-plant killer. Which is a bit of a surprise. And a toilet paper weirdo of some strange kind too. Rolls of the stuff stacked in a tower on the floor of the bathroom. An unopened roll left on the bedside table. Two of them lurking on the kitchen counter — all shifty like they are about to drop a ‘it doesn’t look like what you think’. Maybe she’s an artist in her day-job and this was an installation for my eyes only.
I wish she had warned me at least, it might have saved me that initial disorientation that comes from walking into a space you occasionally occupy in some way and finding weird shit (no pun intended) going on. Like a tower of bog-rolls colonising the limited makeshift shelf space. Like I said, weirdo. A pot-plant killing, bog-roll hoarding weirdo.
So, I’m trying to save the pot plant and the first real rain of Spring has just landed in the village. Yesterday we got the season opener, an afternoon cloudburst in the midst of a baking hot day. I felt it coming and dashed out to grab the washing off the line just as the first drops landed. It was the third straight load of washing to go on the makeshift drying lines strung across the courtyard. The heat of the day so intense that sheets that came out the washing machine at 8am were crispy dry before 10am.
This morning I woke up and saw that a writer I follow, had tweeted about getting clothes off the line in a Durban cloudburst. She asked if there was any more fun domestic activity but it was enough to remind me how this little bit of village life from childhood has remained beautifully intact. The memories triggered a reminder of the lovelorn Malangana caught in a cloudburst in Zakes Mda’s Little Suns — and a few lines that found and have held me in their deep, and tender embrace since first reading them.
‘Summer rains have a tendency of falling without any provocation. As they did three days ago, forcing him to seek protection under a tree among the Tsolo crowds who were so vulgar their children didn’t know the distinction between Thunderman and a lovelorn mortal caught in a cloudburst’.
The startling petrichor that followed the initial storm, was as intoxicating as the thrum of raindrops on the terrazzo floored courtyard. The baking heat of the day washed away in minutes. Today, it’s the real deal, a gentle patter has started up on the leaves. The sky looms more than hangs and the grey is as meaningful as the look a grey-eyed acquaintance is likely to give you when you announce the taxi is waiting outside. And it’s 6am on a Saturday morning. Or so I’ve been told.
But back to the more lasting storm; the leaves drip a steady stream of water onto the bare ground around the newly planted banana tree, colouring as it gathers threads, percolating as it flows over the pebbles and reaching the corner of the garden wall in a rich brown flow that pools into the flooding planter box.
The smell of the earth after rain is a little less intense than yesterday and soon it is replaced by the heavier smell of water. Of a steady rain after a long dry spell. Of water pooling on concrete and in buckets, splashing into the pond and landing directly on the ground. Wet and still surprisingly warm — it’s nigh on 5pm and I’m still in the mornings sunrise swimming trunks and an oversize t-shirt.
The pace of the patter drops and the gutters stop gushing — the gargoyles washed clean. Now the silence starts to grow larger and only a fine mist hangs in the air in front of me and drips steadily on the sodden ground. The sky’s the deep stormy grey that you’re likely to remember every time your heart is watered by a drop of tinkling laughter; every time you hear a smoky voice as it nuzzles closer to your ear; every time you see the flitting eyes and overly focussed concentration elsewhere the millisecond after she first spotted you approaching — her face slightly flushed, smiling and her words full of the minutiae of life and saying so much more.
Lovelorn mortals in a cloudburst.
A sudden breeze picks up, lifting the gauze curtain and dragging the smell of wet Labrador into my consciousness. Right, it’s time to tumble dry the canine. With a very large towel.
