As with all good things, the rain had to come to an end. And, just when I was getting so very used to it!  It was so pleasant to see and feel the island like that- skies overcast, people huddling into themselves, and it raining every other moment. It made all the days of scorching sun something that happened a long time ago in the past. 

 On the evening news, there had been talk of flooding in some areas. And, one of my managers was worrying to me about what he suspects will happen if the rain didn’t “ease off” in his area.  He seemed particularly concerned with the welfare of the roads in his area. I listened in amusement to him, quite conscious that he was trying to hide the fact that he was less than happy to have been called out to a meeting that night in such weather.

But, before I could make an appropriate sympathetic response, another manager had chimed in to wonder what the first was worrying about.  This second manager shook his head passionately to me in a bid to encourage me to ignore the first.  According to him, it didn’t matter if it rained for all of one month. He was very confident that there just needed to be one dry day- or even half-day- and everyone would be left wondering whether or not they’d imagined the thirty or thirty-one days of rain.

At the time, I thought he was exaggerating. But, as soon as the rains stopped for just a brief moment, I saw what he meant. In an hour, people stopped huddling. In two hours, there were bright smiles and cheery attitudes everywhere. In four hours, the sky was brightly blue and the sun scorching. In half-a-day, the earth, which, was so very wet and flooding before, was now dry.  And, I wasn’t mistaken to think I actually saw a few drought cracks showing in spots in my backyard.

It’s very human to marvel at how things can change in so short a time.  Indeed, it’s very human to marvel.  I've found myself caught in a long line of “heavy” traffic on particular streets in Antigua. And, a few times, I get to the top of the line only to discover that there had been an accident. But, the traffic wasn’t “bad” because there was an accident; it was just that other motorists and pedestrians had to stop to marvel at the accident- not because accidents were a novelty on the island, but…just because. Once, I even overheard another motorist, who had removed herself from her own vehicle, excitedly inviting someone, over the phone, to come to the scene to have a look. And that for a pretty non-extraordinary accident site.

I think, I could be millennia old and still always be very human in that way- marveling at the little things. Not accidents, surely- just the little things; the little changes in my environment and the little nuances of life. In fact, I think it’s quite right to marvel about little things.  It’s the little things that are always the key to a chain of big things- at the top of which are the really big and biggest things. Sometimes… it’s the little things that get you through the rain…or the sun.

(V). Damien