Ode to Gray, to Rain

“Dias feos,” “dias malos,” they call them here: those days when the rain alternates between diluvial-this-can’t-be-real-downpours and steady drones of determined precipitation. Days when even running next door requires not just a rain jacket, but rain pants, rain boots, and an area to drip off before stepping inside. Summer has unequivocally packed her bags and headed north, leaving nondescript Winter to sidle in with even colder rains, greyer grays, and deeper puddles. Much ugliness has come our way.

Six months ago, I found this place’s incessant precipitation hilarious—I just couldn’t believe that so much water could keep going from sky to land. That lasted maybe two weeks, when I first landed in Renihue, a novice at fire starting, weather forecasting, and general life-upkeep in a soggy climate. Although hardly a meteorologist, by necessity I learned something about the weather patterns here: if I can see the volcano in the morning, better enjoy it: the rain might start soon. Once it begins, yet another “front coming in,” it might pour continuously, or not. The sun might even emerge, tantalizingly, for a bit, prompting me to throw open the doors and rush outside—just in time to get far enough away from the house so that the next downpour can catch me innocently jacket-less.

During the relatively more lovely months of summer, I balanced my delicate compromise between so-called “work” and “play” according to the updates from Tiempo del Sur: if it rained, I’d struggle through the bad internet and maybe accomplish something; if not, I’d run around with whoever offered some passing companionship. This system had its advantages: adventures (generally not documented here, due to my aforementioned poor updating skills) were had, and a few quasi-slightly-perhaps meaningful contributions to saving the world might have been completed.

But before I left, I knew I’d have to make peace with the rain and the grey, to wake up loving it and to document its own subtle beauty. And so that has been my project of late, one which rebuffs determined focused efforts but flourishes in the odd moments of waiting, relinquishment and attachment. For to truly embrace this place, I had to love its rainy faces—and had to learn to notice the variations and the details I had written off under the headline “more rain.”

The way the nearby hills look when horizontal wisps of mist whip past them, and the far-away hills remain hidden. The duller, less photogenic but dearer colors of sunless days, and the gentler cold of rainy nights. The dynamic alternations between days of fierce, terrifying winds—perpetually rattling the chimney of my house to remind me of my solitude—and days of motionless rains. The sense of openness that drifts in during brief pauses in the rain. And the smells of wetness, all of them: of wet wood sizzling away, of moldy back rooms, of rain jacket hoods, of damp bark and muddy swamps.

You can only wait for sunshine so long, I’ve learned—while also sinking into a way of life where talk about the weather isn’t small talk. Remarking that “Domingo era pésimo” works to create a shared memory of days that might otherwise blend together in undifferentiated grayness: exchanging the comment reassures everyone that good days and bad days really do exist, even if none of them happen to include the sun. Writing about rain might seem trite to those who live not only in drier places, but also in lives that provide more insulation from what nature sends our way. The longer I stay here, the more profoundly I sense the inescapability of the weather here. Whether moving by (wave-tossed, frigid) boat or (cloud-bound, turbulence-prone) plane, one cannot reliably get anyway but for the grace of the weather gods. Farm work, both in its nature and in its enjoyability, varies entirely with the weather. Even sitting in a little house, with nothing to look at but the rain, leaves me vulnerable to the vicissitudes of what blows in.

As I plan my retreat back towards another summer, part of me feels guilty for not testing myself against a real winter here, which would require making a more profound peace—or perhaps daily moments of peace—with the utter harshness of the climate here. Character-building? I’ve done plenty of that in my day, along with plenty of wondering…building for what? But there’s a realness of life here that the rain drums in: those who arrive in perfect Renihue on a sunny day may see a fairy-tale utopia, but those who make a continual life here scoff at such a vision.

Rain, grayness, darkness, cold: I’d lie if I proclaimed unending love for you, but I’ve seen your moments, too. La tranquilidad, say those who have stayed, marks this place as special. You, the less charming forces of weather, make it so. Not only through the rain’s calming patter and the cold’s cozy inclinations, but also through their stern work as guardians against the undeserving.