It's Raining and I should be Happy in such Weather! But...

Since yesterday, it's been raining. Yesterday it was drizzling more than pouring. But then early morning today, I heard the heavy footprints of rains drops.

Drought is more typical of California than rain. Water has been a serious problem here for years now. But this year, it has been different. And the year end seems to be more different than anytime before. Looks like 2011 will be welcome with showers.

I was born in the rains. In July in Assam in India, where heavy rainfall is a way of life. And then over the years, have grown reading and seeing and experiencing floods. Have seen bamboo plant rafts during flash floods from the Brahmaputra in Dibrugarh while growing up.

But then, years later, when I spent a long time, another type of weather had dominated my life. Extremely hot, dry in summer, and cold in winter. So where was the rain? Occasional short spells that never continued over days. Like back in Assam.

And now, in California, the unending rains have brought back memory. Childhood, growing up years, etc etc. I should have been happy. Why not?

Because I am missing home. What to say? Parents, sisters, the sights and smells, the food and colors, the people and the festivals. It isn't easy to stay away from family.

My First Cruise

Recently, we went on a cruise on the west coast. We started from San Diego, to Catalina Islands, and then to Ensenada in Mexico, then back to San Diego. The ship in which we travelled, the Carnival Elation, was large, filled with passengers, teeming with activities, and overflowing with food. For a first time cruiser, all this made an instant impression.

I'd never been aboard a large ship before. If ever I was over water, it was on small boats and ferries. I've never had the need or the compulsion to be on a ship. And now, when by Equal Half suggested a cruise suddenly, although it took me abck, I agreed to him. I was anyways game to new experiences, and this, I presumed, would absolutely be a new one. And it did turn out to be so. It did not match any of my previous life experiences.

The simplest mismatch with everyday life was the water that I saw all around me. For someone born in Dibrugarh, Assam, where there was the Brahmaputra and river water and rain water most of the year, the large body of water of an ocaen, the Pacific Ocaen in this case, was simply uncomparable. It was deeper, wider, until the eyes could see. The horizon eneded in a thin line of water only.

So much water could be a cause of nervousness for someone like me, inexperienced with the behaviour of this kind of water. But there are advantages of being born in the Twentieth Century. You've seen so much of similar things on film and television, with lot of vicarious living, that almost nothing seem to be new or strange. The movie Titanic was my reference point for comparison of the real life ship with the films that showed so much of a ship during the story.

Anticipation

Have you ever wondered how you feel meeting someone you've never met before, eating something you've never eaten before, or going to visit a place you've never seen? That feeling is right now sitting in the pit of my stomach and raising all sorts of emotions.

Tomorrow will be my first visit to San Diego, the beach city I've heard about so much. I've heard about the beauty of its beaches and the effervescent adulation about its great weather. And more than that, I've heard about its Gas Lamp district.

Not seeing something before creates a rise in expectation. Often, some places are able to meet those expectations. That creates a desire to go back to that place again, and repeat the experience. I hope San Diego turns out to be the same, a place I'd want to repeatedly go back to.

Separate from the San Diego visit, another experience I'm looking forward to is the cruise on a ship I'm going to take from San Diego. I've never been on a ship until now. In India, I'd been on ferries on the Brahmaputra (the only male river in India, they say) while crossing from one ghat to the other. Then, in Goa, a great tourist destination, I'd been on a motor boat from Anjuna beach to Baga beach. And there had been scattered instances of being on a raft during a flash flood in Dibrugarh , or on a row boat while crossing the Ganges at Rishikesh.

How ould it be to be in a 10-story ship, with thousands of people? And how would it feel to be in the ocean, with water only all around, and no land. Fo someone who had never seen the sea for the majority of her life, it is amazing that I am now surrounded by ocean, and make excursions like these off and on. Earlier it was all land, now it is all water. What an irony! But I like the variety that life has to offer. It enrishes me.