Rain

The basalt region experiences half a year of sunshine and the other half of the year is dedicated to rain. After a long period of drought, the first rain of the season is always eagerly awaited. It seems that this anticipation also encompasses emotions, nostalgia, and a sense of routine.

After the first rains of the season, people will sow the seeds they've prepared from the previous season onto the prepared land. Season after season, bringing forth new hope. The weary streets, washed clean by the scorching sun, are refreshed by the rain. The road seems to have been pulled up from a river, pure and cool. The trees and leaves also rejoice with the rain, turning a vibrant green.

After the rain, the flowers of summer awaken, blooming brilliantly along every street. My small city has trees that are so familiar that if they appear in a photo posted somewhere on social media, it immediately sparks a flurry of comments; each comment usually linked to a memorable memory.

That afternoon, while sheltering from the rain, I stumbled upon a photo accompanied by a few status updates in a Gia Lai online group. The photo, created by a young person using AI, showed a person sitting in a cafe looking out the window. Outside, a few low-lying wooden houses with corrugated iron roofs were hidden under the shade of pine trees along a muddy red dirt road, the sky overcast with rain and a silvery mist. The photo transported many people, including myself, back to Pleiku in the 1980s and 90s.

Those were the days when Pleiku was very sparsely populated. Only a few main roads in the town center were paved. Most houses were made of wooden planks joined together, with corrugated iron or fiber cement roofs. The houses were small and low, sometimes nestled down steep, winding slopes. Even the shops were small and cramped. And it rained a lot back then.

I once lived as if immersed in months of rain where the sun never shone. We would sit in a small cafe fragrant with the scent of pine wood amidst the swirling rain and fog of the afternoon. The pine branches swayed gently by the window, allowing us to clearly see the transparent raindrops clinging to the needle-shaped leaves, slowly rolling and falling. Perhaps those days partly shaped our personalities—quiet and reserved.

Further out towards the suburbs, the rainy season made travel difficult due to the muddy and slippery dirt roads. The red soil clung to clothes and was very hard to wash off. Perhaps the image of the houses made of wooden planks stained with red earth in the suburbs and the children soaking wet from playing in the rain in the ditches in front of their houses will forever remain etched in my memory.

The heavy rains caused the road to overflow, turning it into a muddy, red river. The rain returned the dirt to the earth and scattered fog over the hills. The rain also carried with it the quiet joys and sorrows of a carefree, innocent childhood.

Sometimes, the rain makes me slow down, like a subtle pause in a piece of music with a regularly repeating melody. In the rain, I can hear a long-forgotten nursery rhyme; I can see my mother's hands moving swiftly, trying to finish the work in the fields during the twilight thunderstorm, or my father's thin back trying to pull the raincoat over his child to keep them from getting wet… All are beautiful memories, and if I could write music right now, I would compose a rain piece just for myself!

Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/khuc-mua-post324021.html