Oh Baby

In Southern towns like this, the weather is stronger than you are. We hardly get any rain. But, as they say, when it rains, it pours. Describing the current situation as rain would be the understatement of the year. Kids are running around in front of my window in their speedos. The water is shooting down main street, arrogantly disregarding the helpless gutters and threatening the sidewalks that are mere islands in the stream. A group of school boys with dripping hair passes the scene in search of shelter, past the small bus station that is already overcrowded with people ducking behind a brightly coloured wall of umbrellas.
The city cleanses itself from the heat of summer. I open the window and let my view drift over the row of small houses across the street. Ranging in colour from New York cheesecake to peach sorbet, their narrow facades seem to have been clinched together to create space for more houses.
In my head, I start checking off the list of things to do. An estimated 37 socks (mixed colours) are having a breakdance party in my washing machine. I hear it rattling and shaking from the bathroom. The first thing I did after I moved here was take out all the doors in the apartment. It gave the rooms a loftier feel. For this past year, the noise from the washer has been the most Sunday-sounding thing I can think of. On Sundays, I miss you twice as much. The bell tower, the smell of crumbs burning in the toaster, the way I aimlessly flip through magazines without a hurry while waiting for my hair to dry after showering. And the goddam washing machine with its monotonous vibrating that fills the air and lets the glassware in the cupboards sing. It all reminds me that this has only been another week in this leap year of Transatlanticism. I like the word. Even though it stands for you and me being separated by one of the largest quantities of water on this planet.
I open iTunes and browse for Transatlanticism. As the opening beat starts echoing through the room, I sink to the floor. Kneeling on the carpet, I let my mind fly off through the window. Down the street, through neighboring backyards. The grey sky has been torn open as if someone really tall bumped into it while stretching. The sun is slowly crawling out from underneath the cloudy blanket. Rays of sunlight flood the valley. It rolls over the hills and vineyards, like a tidal wave. Its image is reflected manifold by billions of freshly fallen raindrops that linger on leaves and bright red roof tiles. After hovering over the town for a minute, trying to make out places that I recognize or people‘s faces that seem familiar, I start my climb. Higher and higher I go, until whole forests blur into stains in different shades of green. Checkered and only delimited by the bent horizon, the landscape opens itself up to my view. I turn my head in the direction I assume I‘ll discover the sparkle of the ocean. Layers of shredded cumulus clouds cross below me.