The Weather Nobody Warned Them About

After three years, the first days of the wet season were still a surprise.

By Neil Solomon · 4 min read

Picture a couple named Ruth and Daniel. They have spent a year reading about a village in the northeast of Brazil. They know the bus times, and they have a spreadsheet for nearly everything. In their first week there, the sky turns dark one afternoon and the rain begins.

It does not stop that day. It does not stop the next day, either.

"Nobody put this in the spreadsheet," Daniel says, standing at the window with a towel over his shoulder.

"Somebody did," Ruth says. "We read it as a word. We never heard it on the roof."

I like that line, because I think it describes most of us. We read "rainy season" and picture a few showers and a green hillside. Then the real thing arrives, with a sound and a smell and a pace that we did not plan for.

What people describe in Brazil

One story I came across was told with a lot of humor. A retiree who had lived in a northeast village for some years wrote about the first three days of the rains as if they were a small comedy. The washing would not dry. The road changed color. The neighbors seemed pleased, and a little amused by the newcomer's face.

What stands out to me is that the writer had already been there a good while. After three years, the first days of the wet season were still a surprise. Knowing the place in the dry months did not prepare him for the wet ones. I think that is worth sitting with. A place we see in only one season is half a place.

What people describe in Bolivia

The Bolivian story felt different. The surprise there was a single day, not a whole season. The writer described four seasons arriving in one day: cold at dawn, bright sun at noon, a change in the afternoon, then cold again at night. There was wonder in it. She seemed to enjoy putting on a layer and taking it off as the hours went by.

Still, I can picture another reader finishing the same description and feeling tired. A day that keeps changing asks something of the body, and of the closet.

Two surprises, side by side

I read this table as a reminder that weather is a daily companion. A companion who surprises us can be a delight for one person and a strain for another. That depends on the person as much as on the sky.

Before a move

Many of us choose a place after one good visit. The visit happens in a pleasant month, because that is when we have time off. That makes sense. But the pleasant month is a small piece of the year.

If we want to know a place, we could ask the people who live there about the months we have not seen. We could ask how they feel in those months, as well as what happens. The answer to "what is the wet season like?" gives us a fact. The answer to "how do you feel in the wet season?" tells us much more.

I also notice the humor in the Brazil story. The writer laughed at the rain. Some of us can laugh when a plan falls apart, and some of us feel it as a loss. Neither is wrong. It helps to know which one you are before the first rain, and even better if your partner knows too.

Ruth and Daniel found a rack for the washing and a long book for the afternoons. By the fourth day Daniel was on the porch, watching the neighbors hurry past with plastic bags over their hats.

"Is it still a surprise?" Ruth asked.

"A little," he said. "It is a good surprise, though. I think."