Summer Thunder
An unexpected storm sweeps across Europe, catching the Balearic Isles in it's wake.
The air is thick with humidity, reminiscent of what I imagine the monsoon season in southern Asia to feel akin to. Lightning cracks through the skies — grey, brooding, ready to burst. And it does. Rain pours down in such vast quantities that it begins to wash the dirt track away, transforming instantaneously into a torrent which carves its way through the previously sun-hardened earth. Visibility is non-existent. Thunder echoes over the Tramuntana. And in an instant, it is over as quickly as it had begun.
The last few days were met with an unexpected storm that swept across western Europe, carrying itself across the Balearic Isles to bring water to place which is in desperate need of it. Yet no doubt there are polarising opinions on whether this dose of fresh water is welcome or not: the residents celebrate, the tourists weep — their holiday is ruined. Such is the detachment of tourism from place: those who visit and benefit from it are also removed from what the land itself needs — and it certainly doesn’t need millions of additional people extracting resources from a limited supply. But that’s a story for another time.
Flights are cancelled, many are left stranded. For a brief moment, the elements invite us to pause, to be. We are granted an opportunity for humility and a not-so-gentle reminder that there are forces larger than us at play. Not in an abstract, religious sense but through a very tangible felt-experience. Our senses, if finely attuned and without the clouding of judgement, will allow us to perceive the power and magnificence of nature: providing an opportunity to rediscover the delicate balance of ecology and climate which we are inextricably connected to, yet so often forget.
The torrents — the Catalan word used to describe the seasonal streams and rivers — are usually dry for most of the year, but now they are once again flowing with living water, cascading down from the upper ranges of the limestone mountains. Valleys reverberate with the hypnotic rhythm of streams which are making their voyage back to the ocean. Even the colours of the landscape have shifted. Somehow the bleaching effect of mid-summer sun has been replaced by a saturation of colour — bronze waters, ivory limestone, contrasted by explosions of forest green and straw-beige from the fountain grasses spreading out from in between the boulders.
It is early morning and the dog is itching to go out. The forecast predicts twenty to thirty millimetres of rain in two hours, an almost unimaginable volume of water in such a short timeframe. I brace myself and head out into the storm. It is less of a run and more of a hybrid land-water sport: a mix of shuffling and wading, water pouring in and out of my shoes, visibility obscured by water droplets that fall with such intensity that it feels similar to standing under a waterfall — my vision is blinded and blurry. I pull my cap down further to protect from the impact.
Yet, there is a strange sense of pleasure to this moment. The temperature is warm, so the water feels more like a shower than the usual shiver-inducing soaking that I would be used to in Britain. The forest around me begins to release an intense wave of scents: the sweetness of pine, the spice of pink pepper. A mixture of leaves, clay and gravel are swept downstream — or downroad, since the definition of water or solid surface becomes somewhat undefined at this point. Lupa is relatively unfazed, as dogs usually are, and I can feel a strange sense of euphoria beginning to emerge. A specific emotion derived from getting outdoors in conditions that any sane person would consider a bad idea. I have befriended the storm, and through participating within its chaos, my perception has shifted. Away from a judgemental human who is longing for sunshine — to a more animalistic, sense-oriented being. Inextricably connected with the natural world. Liberated from the shackles of the human experience through fluid movement in the great outdoors.
