Rain Rain Go Away!

It's been raining camels and donkeys here. The damp suffocating feeling, the mist and the rain, take me right back to a Bahraini winter. It is warm yet humid...cool yet heavy...too heavy on my heart .. and has a way of pressing you down, taking you lower than you ever want to be.

Had I been in Bahrain, my mood would have been jubilant - in fact doing somersaults. I love it when it rains there, when the rain clears up the dust and exposes all the potholes and corruption, all the lies and dirt, in our roads and lives and all the thieves who have benefited from government contracts to 'fix' the roads and drainage ...I get excited when people scramble for safety from water (haha) and when the houses leak and the flooded neighbourhoods become makeshift ponds as children wade through them and their mother's voices become shrill yelling after them to be careful of cars - never mind the mosquitoes!

While the rain in Bahrain lifts up my spirits, this rain - which usually falls over weekends - wreaks havoc with my system and makes me feel homesick - more homesick than I have ever been in this self-imposed exile.

Here.. it rains.. and people go about with their everyday business. It snows and people continue to live. There are gusts and tornadoes and schools being blown away and road warnings and temperatures below -30 degrees Celsius and those I see from my window go on with their lives as if nothing has ever happened.

Why am I not out? I am sulking... just as I have been for a year and a half now. Sitting in my place.. brooding and sulking.. as the world goes by and I am stuck here. There is a way out.. there is a door.. a car in the garage.. and lovely scenic drives.. amazing shopping.. New York City around the corner.. a conservatory which teaches art and music outside my door steps.. a gym in the basement.. a botanical garden which offers painting and gardening classes..one of the finest universities in this part of the world a few minutes away from me.. and the list goes on.

What am I waiting for?