Today's world is so fluid that even tongue twisters change. The Catalan classic “Plou poc, però pel poc que plou, (no) plou prou” incorporates the adverb of negation. A persistent drought threatens us and drinking water restrictions are beginning to be a possibility. We are one step away from emulating the Minister of the Environment, Francesc Baltasar, when in 2008, putting the real connotations of his last name before his militant agnosticism, he entrusted himself to La Moreneta (our virgin of the cave) to implore her for rain.
Soon we will enter the municipal campaign. If it doesn't rain, perhaps the Iniciativa heirs will want to make tiktoks with one of the famous rain dances of the Amerindian peoples. (Service information for any candidate for mayor of Barcelona who wants to counterprogram Collboni's tiktoks: it is seen that in the Balkans there are still choreographic traces of the Roman aquaelicium.)
The point is that at the moment it doesn't rain enough, and every time they show the sunny map with yellow dots, the meteorologists adopt a melancholic tone that causes sadness. As a child, like all city children, I learned to hate the rain. “Carrers molls, calaixos eixuts”, they said at home, although for the family business –a shoe store in Virrei Amat square–, the rain was a guarantee of future sales. In fact, I always heard them say that they saved the store thanks to the great snowfall of 1962, which destroyed the shoes of all of Nou Barris. But on rainy days, people did not go out to buy and the mood of a shopkeeper does not depend on strategic plans. It is the reverse of Shakira: she does not bill and cries. So the rain, at home, was always frowned upon and I, who also wore Peque glasses, hated it until the contradictions of adolescence led me to hate umbrellas and I took a liking to getting wet.
Approaching mature age I value a good downpour, but I enjoy it more if it doesn't break the window panes of the station. In the city I am entranced by the trickles that form through the streets, like an ephemeral river system, and in the mountains I inhale the exquisite fragrances that the rain gives off with the face of a sommelier. Let it rain already for a fucking time!
