Forty degrees and drizzling rain, mid-September, Hohenschwangau—Guiding tours, the worst days are the cold and rainy days. But I’ve had worse best days at other jobs. The most rewarding part of the cold and rainy days is when I’m telling stories to a crowd of tour guests, up to thirty at a time. It’s the hundred-and-somethingth time I’ve told these stories, but I put all the emotion and enthusiasm into them as though I just wrote them this morning. I know them by heart, so I have time to enjoy the telling as much as those listening.
Rain patters on overhead leaves. Gusty wind rattles branches. From green hills beyond, mist rises into blue-gray clouds on a close horizon. An odor of damp, decayed wood wafts in the air. The audience is a diverse crowd of folks of all ages, from different countries, different cultures, from all around the world. They came to a small corner of Europe to see a castle built by a crazy guy who enjoyed going to the opera and building monuments to his idols and to his own imagination. They came to go inside the castle. They didn’t expect to be outside before going in, listening to all these stories about the man who built it and how he came to do so.
Still, here they are, huddled under umbrellas and bundled up in parkas and scarves, arms around each other for warmth—as surprised to be standing there, in the cold and rain, as I am that they stay. They stare holes through me while I talk, some with furrowed brow, some with creased smile. They nod when they recognize some historical fact. They ooh and aah at the intriguing parts. They laugh at the funny bits. After the story about a knight, I point to his statue on the castle’s peak, a silhouette against clouds. They say that was a great story. I tell them I can do better. After the story about a dragon, they say they see the dragon, there in the landscape, shrouded in mist, and they say that was the very best story. Rain runs along umbrella ribs, while time stands still. Time spent in communion with the past and with our fellow humans from way back then and from just now. Time in the cold and rain. Time not they nor I regret not getting back.
