Password of memory

People living under this sky, memory is like a hard drive that is sometimes overloaded, every day having to remove some "capacity" to continue loading new frames. But there are things, just a light collision - a scent, a light, a sound - is enough to make memories burst like a dam containing water for many years suddenly bursting open. It turns out, what we thought we had forgotten, turned out to be silently built up, cultivated in a hidden corner of the soul, just waiting for a beautiful day to rush back. The cold of early winter, the leaves falling from the branches in autumn, the bright golden light of early summer, or the first rains of the season - all are passwords to open up the deep regions in every sensitive person.

Lying down at night listening to the rain, I feel my heart being soaked with old memories. The rain of the past was just the accidental drops of water from the sky falling on the porch, condensing on every tile, every bamboo panel, every time-darkened ceramic jar. In the full jar, each drop seemed to spiral deep into its own small universe, just like the human heart - sometimes thought to be full of reason, but still had room for tiny drops of emotion to seep deep and spread.

Illustration: LE DUY

In the cramped space of the small house of the past, my mother rocked the cradle to put my younger brother to sleep. The sound of rain mixed with her lullaby, like a gentle chorus of the universe and maternal love. The rain seemed to set to music the six-eight poems that my mother learned from my grandmother, from the women who came before me - those who wove lullabies from suffering, from dreams of a peaceful life. I saw in that lullaby a strange serenity - the serenity of human life from birth to returning to the earth. Perhaps, the moments when the lullaby mixed with the sound of rain falling on the eaves were the most sacred and precious moments in life?

Growing up, sometimes we escape from newly blossoming love affairs, goodbyes, separations to return to a dark room, listening to the sound of rain like the broken love of heaven and earth in harmony with the human world. "Each lover leaves me like small rivers...", Trinh Cong Son's lyrics suddenly paint a space full of tears - where the roads are flooded, old figures silently leave without a word of goodbye. Rain - sometimes is not just a weather phenomenon, but a soundless prayer for past feelings, a way for heaven and earth to comfort lonely people with a steady, penetrating sound.

Those who have gone through love affairs, come back and throw themselves on a single bed, curl up in a warm blanket and listen to the rain falling outside the window will understand, will feel it. The rain seems to drain away all illusory joy, the rain seems to erase the boundary between day and night, between reality and dream. The rain brings to people's hearts a strange stillness - both cold and gentle, both awakening and soothing.

There are people who can never forget a rain in their whole life. Because in it, they sent a loved one off to the eternal world. Because in it, they held the hand of the first person they loved under a wet porch. Or simply, because on a rainy night, they heard their mother lull their baby to sleep with melodies that have faded into the earth and sky but remain forever in their hearts.

We often search for the big things in life - career, fame, perfect love. But sometimes, the first rain of the season is enough to make us realize that what makes us who we are comes from the simplest things - an old lullaby, a full jar, a small house and an unexpected rain...

And perhaps, memories never disappear, they are just sleeping, waiting for a day - a ray of sunshine, a smell of damp soil, or the first rain of the season to pop up like an invisible password. So that we can once again be the children of the past, lying listening to the rain fall, listening to our mother's lullaby and feeling our hearts calm down amidst the storms of life.

Yen Ma Mountain

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/van-hoa/202509/mat-khau-cua-ky-uc-dda39aa/