It’s supposed to rain, a lot, this weekend. We were planning to go out on a camping trip, but warned by the media and some websites, we decided to stay home. There is no fun in camping in the Alps if your tent isn’t waterproof. Right? And the rain has started now, slowly but it has started. You hear a small thunder grumble far away. The Grenoble valley is darkening up and the clouds are filling all the empty spaces in the air. Time to get the laundry in and more importantly to take down the harvest that is ripe or almost ripe before the rain drains it away. And so we did all this, this morning, before the rain. 

It’s always a special feeling here #onthemountain if you are waiting for the announced clouds to splatter open. The darkness and pressing heat that announces the end of the rainless days or  weeks that filled the air up with warmth. I love it. I love the feeling that you have to prepare yourself for something. And slowly you hear the wind walk up to you from the small valley on the right of the house. You don’t hear the wind really, but you hear the trees in the forests that move along with the wind. You can also see it. It’s like a hand that is patting the fur of a dog. You see how part of the trees that move in a way like it’s following an invisible hand movement. It’s like magic. It reminds me of what once was my home. Macedonia, where rain is scarce and when it comes, it comes hard. 

beforetherain

This daydreaming about rainfall and that, what once was home – reminded me again of Before The Rain a movie by Milčo Mančevski. It’s a beautiful movie made a long time ago, now almost 20 years ago – with the third Balkan war still burning on the background of peoples minds. It’s a romantic tragedy that takes place in Macedonia. It’s one of my favourite movies, not only due to chauvinistic emotional reasons. It’s about love that’s not meant to be. It’s about hate. It’s about misunderstandings, about traditions and everything in between. And it all happens before the rain.