The expected: Saturday morning, I was already a bit weary when I opened the curtains; the clouds on the horizon looked pregnant with water, though were I was standing it was still sunny. Arriving at the market -a place you find mainly locals but occasionally a lost tourist appears (I make a sport out of guessing their nationality when they are 10 meters away and trying to rate my profiling skills by listening carefully to the spoken language when they come closer by. I have a satisfying score)- people outside were judging the produce at the stands; tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, cherries and strawberries by freshness but every 10 seconds or so they tended to look up since the white clouds were replaced with dark blue ones. You could almost hear people calculating out loud the estimated time they needed for purchasing their goods, walk to the car or public transport before the first drops fell. You saw everywhere umbrellas appearing, some opened them but closed them after they noticed they'd actually opened them pre-maturely. Then the rain started; umbrella's were opened ponchos put on; something they had been mentally practicing for. I put my collar up and just stood there waiting for the rain to pass.
The unexpected: Early this morning around 3:00 am my phone started to ring, I heard it but somehow it took me a while to become fully aware of the happening. When I realized it was my phone ringing it immediately felt someone put a 30 kg bag of flour on my chest, at the same time my heart started to pound like it does when you sprint for a 200 meters and suddenly stand still, it actually pounded so loud that I could imagine the neighbors waking up from it. I started to think: who died? or maybe someone got severely injured, with the emphasis on severely since the news of someone breaking an arm could wait for a more decent time. My next thought was: when is the earliest flight to Amsterdam? I answered the question myself: I think it around 10:00. What time should I leave for the airport then, and would there be any tickets available? After that, my mind suggested the following calculation: If the person died today that would mean the funeral would be on Friday, that gives me enough time to bring my suit to the dry cleaners. All these questions were asked and answered in a split second.
I picked up the phone - I could not see the number because my eyes were tearing from the light projected by the display- and said in my clearest calmest voice: Klaas. Nothing. No answer.
Here comes the question which stuck to me: would I like to see 'things' coming or rather not? In case of the rain, you can make an estimate- in other words prepare yourself for 'things to come'. In the case of the phone call, I did not see it coming and therefore I was not nervously looking at my phone every 10 second which gives a certain peace of mind but the impact both physically and emotionally is - to put it lightly- noticeable .
The seriousness of both cases are quite different of course rain vs. death but now -as a mental exercise- turn things around: death vs rain. What would one want?