rain on me

Rain on a tile patio - or a corrugated metal roof - is one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.

I've been spending the past few days, waiting for the rain. PAG-ASA - the local weather people - say that it is officially the rainy season, that this current hot dry spell is temporary. I hope so. There's nothing I like more than waking up in the early cat's light to the sound of rain pattering on the roof - and there is no place in the world where it rains quite like it does in Manila.

Some of my sweetest memories have the rain as their background.

- - -

In 1992, when we returned to the Philippines for the first time, it was May - hot and sweltering, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Our living room was stacked to the ceiling with boxes. My dad was worried and cranky. My mother was busy going down to Customs to try to get them to release the rest of our stuff. The house was overflowing with cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom seemed to be trying to help but none of whom seemed to actually be helping. My sister and I were frantically going through boxes, trying to find our school things because we were scheduled to go to school in a week - my mother had enrolled us as soon as we arrived in Manila so that we would have something "normal" to do.

At night, we slept on cots that were spread about wherever there was space. I had looked for my favorite blanket - a tattered old comforter that was made of yellow satin, which I had slept with almost every night since I was five - and was told that it had been discarded in the move. After a brief, fruitless tantrum - apparently someone had thrown it away while they were packing up our things in Bangkok - I settled for my bear, Robert, which fortunately I had packed in my own backpack. From then on I learned my lesson: all my valuables I pack myself, and bring in my handcarried luggage if possible.

For weeks I had nightmares of people disappearing, dying, turning into balloons and floating away beyond my reach. In one dream that I still remember clearly, an angel came down and told me It's your fault. It's your fault they've left you. When I woke up from that horrible dream, crying, the room was empty; I panicked and ran through the house, searching for people. It turned out that they had gone down the street to a neighbor's to visit, thinking that I would stay asleep until they returned. For the five minutes they were gone, I thought everyone had died and that I was alone. I cannot remember ever being more terrified in my life.

A month after we'd moved back, my sister and I had started school. We were in the dining room, struggling with homework, when there was a loud boom. What's that? I asked, scared.

My mother came in from the kitchen, her hands wet, to see what was going on. Oh, it's raining, she sighed, when she had looked out the window and figured out that the boom had been thunder. Love, she said to my father, who was sitting at the table with us working on his own project, Look, it's raining.

He looked up, and for the first time since we'd returned to Manila, he looked happy instead of tired and worried. It never rains like that in Bangkok, he told my sister and me, both of us staring wide-eyed out of the window at the downpour. Let's go stand in the rain.

Wait, I cautioned, holding back even as the three of them headed for the door. Are we sure it's not acid rain?

My father laughed. Forget about acid rain for now, he told me. Just come on.

We went out, the four of us, and stood in the driveway watching as the rain came down. It was the first time I'd ever seen rain come down that hard, so thick that all I could see was gray sheets of water. My father walked out and stood in the rain, his face lifted up to the sky. It's lovely, he said. Come on!

My mother followed him, and then my sister. I hovered on the last inch of space still covered by a roof, still sputtering something about acid rain - it was one of the last lessons I'd learned in my science class before we'd left Bangkok. My mother started laughing, and she looked drenched and young and happy. Don't worry, babe, she told me. Maybe there's acid rain somewhere in the world, but this rain is clean. From anyone else I would have required a lengthier and more detailed explanation, but my mother is a hygiene nut. When she says something's clean, it's clean - so I stepped out into the rain and had fun with my family.

I still love bathing in the rain.

- - -

A couple of years ago, I was sitting out on our lanai, chatting with the boy I was dating at the time. He had brought me home at almost 2AM, I had let him in, and we had started talking. The sky was lightening, and our rooster - we had a rooster back then - had crowed several times before he straightened up and glanced at his watch. I think I have to go, he said reluctantly. Your rooster sounds like he's trying to tell me it's time for me to beat it.

I laughed, and walked him to the door. It looks like it's going to rain, I said. You'd better go before it starts.

We kissed good night - well, good morning - and he got into his car and drove off. As I had predicted, it began to drizzle minutes after he left, with the rain growing steadily into a full-on downpour. I was sitting in our kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee, when my phone beeped with a message from him. It's raining, he said. Too bad I left - it would have been nice to sit and talk with you while it was raining outside.

I messaged him back - Don't worry, I told him. We'll get our chance.

I really hope so! he answered - and that made me smile, the idea of settling down somewhere cozy and chatting with him for hours while the rain poured outside.

We never did get a chance to have that rain-lulled chat. The relationship ended abruptly and badly five months later, before we ever had the opportunity, and for a year we did not speak to each other. We were civil to one another in public - friendly, even, when we ended up working in the same office for a while. Outside of those brief meetings, we refrained from contacting each other. I deleted his number from my phone book, changed my number, and only reluctantly agreed to exchange numbers once again when I realized that we would need to contact each other for a work outing I was arranging.

Since then, we've made our peace. He was never really angry with me, he says, only hurt and disappointed that I refused to talk; I got tired of being angry, and decided to let things go. We were friends, after all, long before we started going out, and it felt like the stupidest thing in the world to let him go simply because we had not been able to make a relationship work.

A few months ago, we went out again - as we still do, occasionally, just to hang out - and returned home in our separate cars. It started to rain, hard, as I drove home, and just as I pulled to a stop in front of a traffic light, my phone beeped. It was him. It's raining! his message read. It's as if the rain came down just to bless and send us off. I had to smile, because sometimes life does give you perfect circles, just like the movies.

- - -

Like I said, I've been here for days, waiting for the rain. Sometimes I wonder if there will be rain of the Manila ilk where I will be sent - if there will be a roof for it to patter against, a place where I can still run out and bathe in the rain, green things and earth for the rain to soak into for that lovely after-rain smell. Then I tell myself I'm being stupid. Of course there will be rain - there'll always be rain.

And if there isn't - well, I'll wait, just as I am waiting now. After all, I'm not the only living being on Earth who can't live without the occasional rainfall.