Yes, they always get me down. At least, that had been during all of my active tennis-playing years so many decades ago. The rains then had always been a constant enemy. Never mind the coaching that your real opponent was yourself rather than the person (or persons) at the other side of the net. Never mind the sentiment that rain was good for the plants and better for the farmers. My thinking then was tunnel-visioned and I had a pig-headed view of the world and just like the game’s scoring, love had been nothing to me during those times.
I reckon the world teaches you a lesson. When much older, my work had for a time, occasionally involved going outdoors. Being such, communing with nature had turned out to be one of my most-awaited simple pleasures. I am sure many who fosters a deep love for the outdoors can relate to the feeling of watching the rain fall silently on a sleeping forest below while viewing it from a small tent atop a mountain. Many a time, such simple occurrences offer us a most humbling realization: we are only small and therefore insignificant creatures in the vastness of all creation.
The rains in the “patag” (as people in the mountains refer to the city), fall fairly on everyone. While it is many things to them; though it could be erratic at times, heavy and capable of flooding rivers and destroying crops, the rains are never regarded as a curse. Being a part of nature, they generally accept it as it is (and while the additive “warts and all” may seem out of place, as long as one gets the idea, I’m using it.).
On the other hand, I’ve heard it called by many names in these, our cement jungles called the flatlands. In one area where we used to live in, for example, I had witnessed a neighbor actually shaking his fist at the sky as it began to threaten to rain. Our place had always been more than knee-deep in water whenever it did.
On the subject of earthquakes, what can one do? We all have our share of the shakes. Cities, particularly those situated near coastal areas, same with country sides and mountain retreats have had their own records of tragedies in the past. All that we can do is to try to limit their effects on us by adhering to already-formulated rules.
Already, many, especially those in social media, have come forward with methods at preventing these and other natural disasters through prayers and new beliefs. Not to say that this is wrong, at least try to be practical and rational. It’s way beyond ‘different strokes for different folks’, is all.
Finally, it’s quite amusing that whenever a tremor is felt, someone on social media instantly posts a shout-out, “Earthquake! I’m first to report it.” May your tribe increase.
