I Can Stand The Rain
Cloud watching in Trinidad
Welcome to Love + Travel where discovery is part of exploring new landscapes.
Enjoy last week’s replay of my conversation with Bridgett M. Davis, author of Love, Rita, or the entirety of my writing, here.
I flew to Trinidad last week.
It’s been over a decade since my last time on the island and every time I visit I’m reminded no place holds as much wonder, or possibility for evolution as the birthplace of my parents. The island holds a piece of my family’s history – my history – and like a river I both pull from its depth and add my current to the ongoing flow. I grew excited as the plane started to bank over the northern ridge, bringing the capital and sea ports into view. I didn’t need to touch the ground to know I was home. That’s the beauty of returning: it’s not the contact that makes you whole, but the pursuit of it that does.
The land gives freely here. Fruit trees hang over front yards beckoning an extended hand from the road. Bougainvillea make trellised escapes, bridging neighboring yards with beauty. With such earthly generosity, there is no need to rush, there’s always more than enough. And yet, while my body was on vacation, my mind was not. I was surrounded by proof that rest is part of a rhythm, yet I couldn’t catch the beat myself.
Everything was on Trini time, moving at the pace of sipping a cold drink, slowly, but I remained in go mode, my thoughts preoccupied with doing. I caught myself speed-walking more than a few times, cutting through the thick, molasses air as if it owed me something. Like a pastel-colored home on a lush green hillside, the contrast was blatant. There was no box to check, no task to finish. The change in landscape only heightened what I already knew, it shined a light on the unignorable yardstick I used to measure my life.
Maybe it was the heat of the day, the weight of reality, or some combination of the two that made me gaze upward in slow surrender. I couldn’t name the bulky feeling parked on my chest but staring at the stillness of the hillside, with cobo circling high above, I longed for hollow bones capable of flight. With my eyes searching for answers in the sky my unraveling paused at the sight of something sure: the imminence of rain.
Clouds gathered creating a shelf, a ledge the sun couldn’t peak over. From a covered patio, I watched the darkening sky. The moment became as still as a reflecting pool and I sat in quiet understanding of the rain cloud’s burden. How challenging it is to climb a hill saddled with the weight of one’s heaviness. The relatability of shattering into droplets to ease the load. And the gentle lift of being guided by the breeze in the wake of release.
There’s always a quiet that precedes a downpour. Water has a way of commanding nature to take notice – to heed its might. You see it in the way birds settle right before the sky splits open and in how the ocean lends its salt to the air, warning all who draw near that they are approaching an uncontrollable thing. The silence is an inquiry. A moment to reflect on whether you’re willing to entangle yourself with an entity that will spare nothing in pursuit of itself.
Whether it arrives all at once like a theater curtain or drifts in hazier than a memory, there’s a flatness, a kind of equality, to rainfall. Its power lies in its apathy, the way it envelops everything, natural or manmade, without discrimination. It rusts metal and revives hillsides into vibrant green. Its force is quiet but certain, falling without hesitation or sentiment, changing everything it touches.
And no matter the path, whether it runs down the mountainside to rejoin the ocean or rises through evaporation to pool silently in the sky, rain never forgets its way back to self. The fall is part of it. There is no getting lost on the path to wholeness.
The world craves water. Creation longs to be rearranged, to be shifted by something relentless enough to flood and drown anything blocking its return. Its arrival is a kind of dominion - a dare. It asserts: You can try, but nothing can stop me from finding home.
I take all of it in from my perch. The way the temporary concedes to the eternal. How droplets, no bigger than a tear, cut and shape landscapes. Rapt by what’s possible when thousands move as one. The rain is a reminder I can watch the storm without bracing against it. Nothing stands in the way of becoming whole again. Nothing stands in the way of return.
On the flight home, from my window seat just behind the wing, I watched the sky stretch to infinity and the sea clutch its secrets beneath miles of aquamarine. My reflection peered back at me faintly in their stretches of possibility. Just before we hit cruising altitude I watched a spark of lightning flash in a cloud column what seemed like an arm’s length away. Moments later, we leveled out, flying high above the gathering storm’s slow churn, oblivious to the unrest that had once gathered at our underbelly.
That’s the thing about storms – they’re always brewing. And in the instances where they don’t fall with immediacy, they simply loom in the air waiting for a turn to rearrange the world. It’s not something to resist – we cannot control the weather – but an opportunity to be split open and trust we will find our way back. The next time I feel a storm gathering, I’ll remember it’s not breaking me apart. It’s leading me home.
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TODAY’S TIDBIT
I was out of the country but in my comfort zone while visiting The Rotunda Gallery on the lower level of the Red House.
To view artwork on permanent display throughout the building, like the one by my aunt pictured above, either schedule a tour of The Parliament beforehand or ask the curator at the circulation desk to escort you to the upper level.
COMMUNITY CORNER
👫🏻 I imagine there are no words to accurately describe the feeling of losing a sibling, and yet,
delivers, Will We Ever Be So Back Again?, a stunning essay on grief, life, memes, and Baldwin.❤️🔥 May we all be seen. May we all be loved. May we all be held along this journey called life.
, I smiled through the entirety of, A lesbian married to a man? writing on the expansiveness of lesbian life.🎉 Everybody say CONGRATULATIONS to
for getting into a fellowship that centers rest and for making me want to pick back up my copy of The Artist’s Way. I think I’ll start celebrating my wins by saying I think I like this little life.LET ME KNOW
I rarely find rain dreary in the Caribbean. Has a change of landscape ever shifted your perspective on something common?
What sounds, foods, experiences, or books/media are refreshing to you? What serves as a reset?
To reconnect with myself, I look to nature. Where do you find your mirror?
Toni Morrison’s quote, “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”, hung heavy in my mind while writing this. Has a quote ever been central to your work or mindset?
This piece made me emotional. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏽💚
“I rarely find rain dreary in the Caribbean.” I agree. I loved this newsletter. ❤️🇹🇹