Sunday 27 October 2013

Living in the desert does strange things to your head…

I downloaded a rain app.

Now, I know that may sound bonkers but stay with me, I promise there is a good explanation.

I’ve been suffering from rain withdrawals. Well, it’s more just any kind of weather withdrawals (sun and then more sun does not count anymore). It’s been just over two months since I moved out here, and the past few weeks I’ve been realising and attempting to make my peace with the desert seasons – or rather lack thereof. Unfortunately the only thing all this trying has achieved is making me think more about the weather I am missing. It’s started me craving sweater weather, cold toes in rain soaked shoes, and ice-cubed noses.

Most of all it’s made me miss rain.

I’d been told there was always rain after a sandstorm. However there have been a couple of pretty big sandstorms since I got here – completely surreal experiences, like a thick yellow fog all around our building with the occasional plastic bag or sand spiral flying past – and neither of them availed even the slightest drop of rain.

My hopes of ever witnessing water pouring from the sky again shrivelled up and took a walk.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the city next over from us experienced a lighting storm. We had a pretty good view of it from our little suburb-esque neighbourhood of Dubai. It was by no means an unimpressive display of the weathers elements but unfortunately it erred more on the side of unsettling rather than providing the comfort in familiarity which I had been craving.

And so, my thirst for rain remained un-quenched.

Then, at long last, it happened. Two days ago it rained. Unfortunately the night owls got the best of this one. Walking out to the car in the morning, it was evident by looking at the ground and our slightly-dirtier-than-I-would-like-to-admit-car that there had been rain during the night. And plenty of it. I was however not overly sad that I missed it. I had felt three miraculous almost-there rain drops fall on my face during the walk and was full of hope that once on our way, the wonderful clouds still sitting in the sky would oblige us with another down-pouring. And pour they did; five drops fell on our windshield as we drove out of the cloud cover and on our way.

Needless to say, I was not amused or satisfied by this turn of events.

Life went on it’s merry way and I did my best to forget my dreams of rain. Until suddenly tonight, while Pinterest surfing, I happened upon a blog where I was introduced to this wonderful thing called a rain app. This is one of these times where I wish internet searching required actual leg work so that I could have harnessed my excitement at the idea and had it fuel a hectic run from place to place, book to book until finally I reached, out of breath and preferably rain soaked – just to give this discovery the weight of epic drama it deserves – at the Rain Sounds app. Fuelled by my excitement and the thrill of the fictional dramatic chase, I threw caution to the wind and downloaded the app without even glancing at, never mind researching alternatives or reviews – reckless I know! Finally, after impatiently waiting for my download to complete, I immediately opened it and swiftly selected ‘Rain on Tent’ to be my first venture into this beautiful wonderland.

I was not disappointed.

That exquisite and oh-so-familiar sound brought a tear to my eye.

After an initial period of flicking between sounds, enjoying their varied depths and tones, I settled on ‘Rain on Car Window’ as my favourite. It’s steady and comforting without getting overly hectic like some of the others, which allows me to have it playing in the background as I write this post. In fact, it’s even so enchanting that Sam has fallen into it’s allure and officially requested it as our sound to fall asleep to tonight. I doubt anybody would be able to resist falling under it’s exquisite spell.

Thank you for taking the time to go through this journey with me, it has been an enchanting haze of an hour since I discovered this app and now signing off is a chilled Harpa looking forward to falling asleep to the pitter patter of beautiful little raindrops.

Adios for now, hope to see you soon!

2 comments:

  1. Wow. It must be very odd for you to have such constantly similar weather. I'd never even considered that you could miss rain. The app sounds like a great find though. I found a white noise generator online that saved my sanity in the flat a few times, I hope yours does the same. If not, you could always get into a cold shower fully clothed & pretend you're back home. x

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  2. lol, I hadn't thought of that, might try it if I get desperate again :)

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