Winter

            

          The rain came and did not leave. One day in October, that blinding Balkan sun went behind what we thought were only a few clouds—we sighed in relief, finally in the shade—and then the rolling thunder came and the beachgoers who sat on the pebbled beaches of the bay rolled up their blankets in the threatening wind and retreated to their homes. We put on light sweatshirts and took off our sunglasses and found our umbrellas. By the time the sheets of rain rattled at our doors, everyone was secured in their homes. Then came out the electric heaters from last year that we dusted off and plugged in. We let their heat fill our houses with a warmth so unlike that summer sun. The rain fell so much that the mountains blackened. The deluge soaked into the limestone and sprang out from its pores, dripped down stalactites and muddied its nooks and crannies.

For six months it rained.

            I walked to work in rain pants and jacket and boots. My umbrella still did not protect me from that rain that swept through the air horizontally. I would arrive at work soaked and I’d settle into the sterility of a classroom lit fluorescent and watch the dark monsoon outside. This was the long winter in Montenegro. The bay filled and poured over onto the sidewalks. The lashing wind pressed the rain through the crack between my front door and the floor and a small puddle formed there that I had to stifle with a permanently-placed towel. On weekends I would watch the streets from my apartment filling up with torrents, overshadowed by the grey clouds low and suffocating.

            Those of us who are new here asked, When will it end? It cannot rain this much. We hypothesized a great error in things: climate change, a freak year, an aberration over the sea. We wrung our hands and rubbed our temples. The old Montenegrins settled into their winter selves with only little concern. Yes, it will rain for months. This is not so unusual.

            But what do we do, we who come from sunny places? We who only know how to spend our free time outdoors? The foreigners wanted to rail against the rain, to stop it somehow—an idiotic thought indeed. It persisted, as all natural forces do, and would not retreat. And so we found ourselves in our homes, looking out of the windows, waiting for a sign of sunshine.

            It came two weeks ago. In the night I awoke to a strange silence. There was no pitter-patter on the sidewalk outside of my door, no grumbling thunder. The air that leaked into the cracks between my doors was clean and dry. At 6am I looked out of my front door and the atmosphere was cool and grey-blue, not a cloud in the sky. The bay was a sheet of glass. 

I remembered when I arrived in the middle of summer, when I had been awake at such times of morning. It was hot then and I would jump and dissolve into the bay and swim. Now I could see that summer was returning. Soon these mornings would be mine again.

            As strangers living here we must believe that some part of this experience can be our own. This is especially true for those of us whose lives and very identities are always itinerant. We have very little that is ours. The land isn’t, nor the seasons. It is not our food, or wine. The language and customs all belong to others. But perhaps a moment in time, and this little space we occupy, can be our own. 

            I’ll take these summertime mornings, the same ones that welcomed me here almost a year ago. Their stillness is mine. The sound of the birds awakening and the feeling of that cold breeze before the sun comes over the peaks.

Yes, this could be mine. After so long in the dark rainy season, trapped inside, I need this morning sunshine. I do not want to possess it like some collector, no. I’ll take these mornings as a lover—we fall in love and intertwine so that one now is part of the other. That is how these mornings are mine. They beat in my chest. I see the world a bit clearer when I am with them. These Montenegrin mornings give me faith that things will always become clear again, that the sun will rise and try its best to stay long enough so that we can forget that the rain was ever here at all.