I love the rain. Ever since I can remember, I've always enjoyed sitting under the weeping sky. I like to think of it a God's tears (back when I was more...errrr... religious) that He sheds to cleanse His people.In a way, despite my... err... religiosity's decline, I still felt cleansed by the rain.
When I was about 2 years old, a big storm hit Bohol. Flood waters reached my uncle's hip. I know because we walked across the street to the still-open sari-sari store, with me on his hip, my little feet dipped in the dirty water. Most of the houses around us were completely submerged. Those with second floors looked like bungalows perched directly on water. Broken branches and debris floated around the oily gray sea. Lighting flashed. The wind howled. The heavens wailed.
But I looked up the sky in awe. I felt the raindrops kiss my face. Tiny cherub kisses. Gifts from God.
I saw the rain as a boon, even as flood waters rose higher.
Thus my love affair with the rain began.
Now that I think of it, most of my memories involve the rain.
As kids, my brother and I would run around the garden half-naked, with beach-pails in our hands and try to catch as much rain as we could. We had this long-running notion that saving the rain would mean good luck when we bathed with it in the shower. Ahhh...the innocence of youth.
I remember getting caught in a downpour with my other brother when I fetched him from kindergarten. Instead of cowering under the waiting shed or seeking the protection of umbrellas and raincoats we braved the lightning to walk home hand in hand, splashing in the puddles and dancing on the people-empty streets. Sure, I got scolded for walking my brother through the rain and risking getting hit by lighting. But it was worth seeing my brother smile and hearing him laugh. And of course, dancing in the rain.
When I got news that I passed the entrance exam to some universities for college, it rained. I found it unusual that a thunderstorm brewed, matured and dropped its cargo barely two minutes after I opened the envelope containing the results. Needless to say, I threw all caution to the wind and ran around the neighborhood with the other kids as the rain pelted down on us and the flood waters threatened to posion us with every microbe and virus it could contain.
Even in the campus (during high school), the rain continued to brighten my day (ironic no?). I remember walking around the campus, letting the water soak into my hideous pink - colored skirt and allowing it to render my white - toned blouse practically transparent. I kicked up a spray of water from a puddle and sang insane songs with my friends as we performed our wet procession. Sometimes, we'd don our shoes and crappiest clothes and play slipper game in the mud, despite the repeated warnings that we might be hit by lightning.
My first heartbreak happened under the rain. He was my closest friend at a time when I felt all my other "friends" had abandoned me in exchange for their own pursuits. I had believed it was love, but I grew to realize that I fell in love with the idea of love rather than with him. Still the rain did not ease the pain of losing a friend to a (wrong) illusion of love. Ironically, it was raining when he and I met again years later. Me in a fresh new relationship, him just out of a stormy one.
It's raining now. Despite the wet, eecky, and dirty feeling of having to trod on still waters and muddy streets while trying to hail a cab, I am surprisingly grinning. Perhaps a lot of people are cursing the rain now. A mother somewhere might be furious that it ruined a perfectly sunny day to dry the day's laundry. Or a dad complaining that he just washed the car and the rain has spoiled the waxy shine it had.
But as for me, I'm still watching the rain drench the earth and suffuse it with new life. Who knows? Maybe it’ll infuse me with more life.
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