Rain on the ring road

When it rains hard in Cairo, the ring road stops.

Two cars sit side by side in the same water, going nowhere, for the same two hours. In one, the driver is furious. If it were not for this weather he would be home. The evening is ruined, and it is the sky's fault.

In the other, the driver has reached the same conclusion about the traffic and a different one about the evening. He is stuck, and it is raining, so what can be done with two hours in a dry seat? He calls his father, who has been waiting for a call for a week.

Neither of them chose the rain. Only one of them gave it the evening as well.

The habit of letting outside events set our state of mind is so ordinary it hardly feels like a choice. If the market were calmer, I could focus. If the customer were reasonable, I would not be short with my staff. If the season were better, the shop would feel lighter. Each sentence hands the controls to something that will never take responsibility for them.

Some situations are genuinely unfair, and some are worth fighting or leaving. That stays true. But even then, the conversation running inside our heads belongs to us. Someone else may have put the first line there. We still decide whether to keep repeating it.

The shift is a small one in grammar. Not "the evening is ruined because of the rain", but "it is raining, and the evening is still mine".

Anger at the weather has never moved a single car. Taking back the story at least gets the evening back.