Aprilwetter

In Arkansas (and probably every other state in the Union, but we all like to think we’re exceptional), we’ll tell any non-native who can discern words in our thick-as-molasses accents that if they don’t like the weather, they can just wait five minutes and it’ll change.  From what I’ve been hearing, this hasn’t exactly been the case this year – if you wait another five minutes, you’ll just get more rain.  So, then, if global weather patterns are any indication, it seems old wive’s tales have followed me to Germany, because while you all back home have been getting nothing but rain, I’ve been enjoying nothing but sunshine. And rain. And wind. And thunderstorms.  All in the course of an afternoon, and usually, but not necessarily, concurrently.  And if I wait five minutes, it’ll probably change.

I was talking to a teacher here about how this beautiful/gloomy/beautiful/violent weather we’ve been getting is really crimpin’ my style (I took it as a sign of the end times, but guess that turned out to be a fluke), and he said they have a word for when the sun shines while it’s raining: Aprilwetter.  Turns out, then, it has nothing to do with me taking the weather with me, nor even with the apocalypse; this unpredictability is exactly what to predict come this time of year.

And so this brings me to today’s cheap metaphor, because what is my English major good for, if not for cooking up obvious and half-baked analogies?

And so, let’s see how this pans out: this “April weather” (granted, a month late) is the perfect sort of weather for mirroring that bittersweet feeling you get at the end of anything – a school year, a summer, a chocolate bar, or as the case may be, a year abroad. I’m so ready to move on and get back home, but there’s also a certain sadness to leaving this behind.  This was supposed to be my year of finding myself, of being young and free and a stranger in a strange land, of drinking strange alcohols and eating rich breads, of picking up a second language and travelling before I get set in my ways and saddled with responsibilities.  Okay, and teaching.  And, to an extent, that is what happened, but really, what this year did was a little less Under the Tuscan Sun; when it comes down to it, what this year did best was confirm things I already knew: I love my boyfriend (there! I said it!) and long distance relationships are sucky, sucky things; I want to go into library science, despite the job market being a sucky, sucky thing; I love barbeque and American ales more than wurst and Rieslings (there! I said it!).  I’ll miss it here, but I’m ready to get back. It’s raining while the sun is shining.

Obvious metaphor, over and out.