Why Am I Afraid of Rain?

A Valentine's Day Reflection on an old house, love, and mortality.

Earlier this morning, as I sipped my coffee looking at the grey, rainy backyard — the low clouds and the fog covering most of Griffith Park below — I felt a sense of instability, of uncertainty, tremor of the spirit.

The rain fell hard on the cement patio where we have recently installed an in-ground spa; but I wasn't looking at the spa, or at the drenched oak trees. All I could focus on were the narrow gaps between the spa and the cement deck:

“It’s never rained so hard,” I worried, “the spa is going to break.”

Later in the afternoon, after yet another unsatisfactory neurological appointment, and left once more in the ‘wait and see’ limbo of time, I laid down on the bed and looked outside; the rain fell hard against the windows, and all I could focus on was that time, two years ago, when the rain and the wind were so strong that the beautiful glass panels, original from 1929, leaked.

The sound of the rain and of the strong wind just added to my gloom and today’s profound depression and sense of uncertainty. So I got up, slowly walked downstairs to the living room, where I stood still, looking for any possible bubble in the wall, that same one where water had also leaked from, shortly before the windows did, during a very rainy Californian winter.

In 2018, just a couple of months after we had moved into this house, and during another strangely rainy Californian winter, the guest room terrace revealed an unexpected damage that had not been detected during the inspections: water leaked through, flooding the garage.

But I have been having a feeling rain isn’t the problem here. As you know, in fact, I grew up at the foothills of the Italian Alps, in a very rainy region; I am used to rain. I have also lived in London for a few years, so rain has always been part of my life, and never have I feared it, or the safety of my house during the wet months.

When did I start being afraid of rain? What hides behind my fear of rain?

In order to answer my question, I went back in time.

This photo was taken in Tarzana, the first house where Ben and I lived together. I think it was 2015 or 2016, when an unexpected rain had flooded the crawlspace of our house. Ben was working that day, and no amount of sandbags had helped. I remember getting mad at him for leaving me alone, but he had no fault: I was scared. We had to dig an emergency trench to re-direct the water so that it would flow away from our house.

When I look back at that day, with more perspective and a quieter mind, I understand what my fear was and is today: I am not afraid the house will collapse, I am not afraid we won’t have the resources to fix the roof, another set of windows, or paint the walls a third time. I am afraid of Ben’s age.

Our 1929 house is the reflection of my contemplation of what one day will be solitude, the loss of the one person in the world that loves me unconditionally, that doesn’t think I am crazy when I tell him my leg and my arm are tingling again, and that I think something is wrong.

I know one day I will lose the only person who has always accepted me, and honored me, exactly as I am. I know one day I’ll lose the human form of the man who sees right through me and welcomes it all.

I thought I would write about rain and mortality, then I realized it’s Valentine’s Day — rain a reminder of what a lucky woman I am, what treasure I have in my hands — a beautiful, elegant, majestic old house, and beautiful, elegant, kind, generous and loving, husband who also happens to be much older than I am.

So when it rains I think of age, of windows cracking, of old brick crumbling, of beautiful things suffering the passing of time; I think of what happens then, when time passes, and the paint finally chips.

But then the sun comes back: I turn around and look at him, still standing, still playing the piano and wearing my favorite Burberry shirt, still handsome, even with a scar of two, just like our beautiful, old house.

ps. he didn't buy this jacket, but he looks cool in it!