Rainy days

The rainy days of late brought me back to being 12 again. May was always notorious for bad weather. Some people have a knack of keeping sparkling clean despite the mucky streets. Not me. I always used get muddy streaks at the back of my trousers when I walk and even my habitual biking would give me the splashes of sludge down the back of my shirt.

I recall the big, blue plastic container we have at the back of our old house, the one that we use to trap rainwater from the eaves. There was a lack of running water back then, and we would try to collect water whenever we can.

I remember the hot, sticky humidity that clings to the silence before the storm.

It can sometimes come like a curtain of water. It starts out as an April’s Fools day of sunshine – the complacent belief you can leave your umbrella at home.  When it starts, there’s that smells that brings all the memories back, of the earth and the air being cleansed. I would look out from the dry comfort of our door and reach out my hand, hesitating slightly as if the raindrops could hurt. It has to be a certain intensity to be perfect for bathing. Not too light, cause that’s just boring and not too heavy to be scary. It had to be just enough to completely drench a twelve year old in shorts and a cotton tank top in about 5 seconds of exposure.

When it felt right, I would rush in, and the sound of rain would overpower everything else.