Friday 26 April 2002

Pic of the day: The state of the forest, southern Norway in late April.

In the rain

Just two days ago, the sun was shining and it was such a nice spring day. But then the skies turned gray, and the raw chill returned. Today as I was leaving work, it started to rain. At least it doesn't snow! It is not that cold, but it is certainly not the weather to go out in your shirt and shorts. As I walked home from the bus, the rain grew heavier for a while. A young girl walked in front of me. I did not look at her, nor did I try to keep the same pace. I just walked home in the rain, thinking rainy thoughts. Which is not sad and depressed, really ... just rainy.

Ironically, this song has been playing in my head repeatedly during the last few days. I may replace it with others, but the next morning it is back, playing again. Sometimes it returns faster than that, too. Is it already more than a month since I quoted it? Perhaps time is speeding up for me too, then. That would be a loss. But then, some loss is to be expected in a lifetime.

The cafes are all deserted,
the streets are wet again.
There's nothing quite like
an out of season holiday town
in the rain...

Chris de Burgh: Fatal hesitation

***

It's a sad love song, actually. It's about this guy who loves a girl and then when she goes home he realizes that he's missing her and that now it's too late. Fatal hesitation. Of course, that presumes that the outcome would have been different if he had acted on his feelings earlier. But is that so sure? Love is a strange thing. It seems less than likely that two people should just love one another, just like that. I keep thinking that probably there is only one who loves the other, and the other is just accomodating it because to be loved is better than nothing. And conversely for the other, that it is better to love, even if you are not loved in return, than not loving at all. I can certainly understand that.

I saw you again this morning,
walking down the beach;
and though you are a thousand miles away
you were only just out of reach.
But when I got up close
and I saw her face
I knew it couldn't be so ...
Oh, Romeo is standing in the rain
and I know that I have let her slip away.
Fatal hesitation ...

So it's not just me? Sometimes I walked through the crowded streets of Kristiansand and suddenly I would see my best friend there in the crowd. And my heart jumped from the surprise. How could she be here, when she was so far away? But of course she wasn't. It was just someone else, someone with the same kind of hair or something. Not her at all. Have you too had that happen, or is it just me and Chris? Of course there is the usual difference. I'm not in love, have never been. It's just that a friend like that is so much on my mind, I guess. Perhaps you would see someone else ... a parent, a child, or an enemy. I wouldn't know. I know who I see who isn't there.

And I know who I think of in the rain. But it is just rain. There's not a drop of salt in it. There is a time for all things, for sun and for rain.