Storm approaches

The old woman on the bus turned to us.

‘You’re not from here,” she said. “You should know, there’s a gale blowing in.”

“Just thought I should warn you.”

You could feel something in the air- see it too. Clouds had been racing across the sky all morning, clipping the tops of the surrounding hills, moving low and fast.  The smell of rain, the air crackling with the nervous energy of an approaching storm.

The weather office had been warning for two days that the South Pacific was about to unleash its fury on Wellington. Now, the trees on the hillsides were doing that slow, wide sway you see in TV coverage of hurricanes in the southern US.

Wellington, from the outlook atop Mount Victoria

Wellington defines itself by its wind. Locals take a perverse pride in it. And here we were, first day in the New Zealand capital, about to witness a real howler. Even the locals seemed edgy.

Our house-sit host told us gusts of 130 kilometers/hr weren’t unusual… in fact, were hardly commented on. The geography of Wellington- on the strait between the North and South Islands, built on hills facing south and east, the wind-tunnel effect of the tight valleys and tall buildings- all serve to reinforce the violence and chaos of the moving oceans of air.

We got off the bus downtown and walked down the street. Women walked together, one hand on their skirts, the other gripping their light jackets. Spring in Wellington.

We pass by storefronts- dozens of unfamiliar names, offering any manner of goods and services- until we see a movie theatre. The boy wants to see a show. Still a bit jetlagged, I give in to the idea of sitting in a comfortable chair for a few hours. We go in as the sky darkens above us. I’m not sure what it will be like after the show.

But it’s still just threatening after the movie, looking uglier but still holding up. We make it back home just as the sky starts to spit.  The wind pushes at our backs, seeming to rush us along. A power drink can tumbles across the street in front of us as we climb the porch. A few recycling bins have tumbled over during the day.

We close the door behind us. The single-pane windows rattle, the walls thrum with a sub-sonic vibration in synch with the howling sweeping around the building. Feeble ghost drafts touch us in synch with the stronger gusts. Air tight we are not.

But as night falls, we curl up on the couch to wait out the weather, listen to the howling, snug in our unfamiliar surroundings.