It’s not raining outside.
Most people describe rain as the sky’s tears. I used to think that too, just because everyone else does. But about a year ago, I was sitting outside my church and it was raining.
I hurry inside the church, but then I saw these two little boys– my little brother and his friend– racing outside, straight into the rain. I watched at the door, as the boys danced madly like little monkeys in the rain.
There’s nothing sad about rain. It’s refreshing, especially on a hot day. It’s washing away all the grim and dirt on earth. And afterward, there’s always a rainbow. ROYGBIV– red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Sometimes, there’s a small, baby rainbow on the side of the street. Sometimes, there’s an adolescent, medium rainbow on the side of a building. And– if you’re lucky– you can see a beautiful, full rainbow arching through the sky.
Rain also smells good. It’s kind of salty, but I like the smell. I might stand alone in this, though.
People go dancing in the rain. My friend wants to get her first kiss in the rain. Movies use rain during sad, emotional scenes to add to the mood. Light showers come over night. Thunderstorms send puppies whimpering, while some children sit at their windows, smiling. “Mommy,” they’d cry, “Look, the sky’s taking my picture!”
I’ve used the rain as the symbol for the sky’s tears before in one of my stories, actually, or rather, a draft for a story. But in another draft for another story, I titled it “Dancing in the Rain,” and used the rain as a symbol for cleansing and washing away the past. The rain cleans the city.
The rain dances too. The plitter-platter of the raindrops falling down on windowsills, front porches, roofs, mailboxes can sound like mere sounds of Nature to some people, but to others, they can be dancing. Yet I have another way of looking at the sound of rain– as a song. When a raindrop hits a windowsill, the sound that results is different from the sound that results when another raindrop hits a mailbox. So when there are countless raindrops all speeding down from heaven to earth, it results in a song.
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. Little Sally wants to play. Rain, rain, go away.”
As a child, I had never said this. Neither did my mom say it to me. I guess this was because I immigrated to the US from an Asian country when I was in third grade and never had a chance to hear this little ditty until I had grown too old for it.
When I first heard it, I thought: “What a cute nursery rhyme. Chanting at the skies. Cute.” But now I thought of something new: “Can’t little Sally play indoors? Or if she wants to play outside, she can always go run around in the rain. Of course, she might catch a cold… but, can’t she have a few minutes of fun with the rain before her mother calls her inside?”
