What shape is your umbrella?
As you watch someone unfurl their umbrella, try and guess how long it will be until that protective dome is twisted into a modern art sculpture. If my observations are correct, the average “lifespan” of a parasol can be rated in hours, or the number of uses. A sad reflection on the industry, and a cry for a return to earlier times, when the umbrella could actually be repaired. Or so I’ve heard.
I’ve not owned many umbrellas over the years. Usually, such an object would be where I wasn’t, in the moment of need. After all, even though we live in a world where weather forecasting is available in the newspaper, on the radio and TV, via websites and portals (or best of all, by looking up occasionally if we’re near a clean window), the average person never is quite prepared for the first few drops. In fact, I’ve become resigned to my fate; if it rains, I’ll get wet.
There may be degrees of wetness, but once the rain is through to the skin, the job is done. I own a fine Gore-Tex jacket that does repel moisture nicely, if I haven’t left it at home, near an umbrella. Like today… In the greater sum of things that make life miserable, a bit of honest rain doesn’t rate very highly on the scale, unless the water level gets above the knees.
But I do wonder what things were like in a time when craftsmen created umbrellas that could sustain flight by nannies, and the very form was iconic. Not like the ones we have now.
