It Can't Rain All The Time

After weeks of intense heat and sunshine, I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I looked out the window and found grey clouds spanning the sky. I felt a pang of overwhelming sadness and wrote a stream-of-consciousness poem for the recent glow in the woods story here.

I haven't tried crying in the rain. I remember a movie scene where the protagonist shouts at the sky, fists tightly closed in anguish, eyes looking up to have tears and rain co-mingle with his pain. Then there's another one, a woman slumped on the ground, rain poured on her in torrents, her hair matted over her face, her mouth wrinkled from the cold as she wailed a name in longing. These imagery just seemed too melodramatic for me. But now, I wonder if it will help ease the sorrow I feel today.

I rummaged in my head for a song, a fitting soundtrack, if and when I decide to step into our backyard and stand in the rain. I imagine the water would be cold as ice, hitting my scalp and then gradually enveloping me with its cold fingers. But at the same time, my tears would be hot from the smoldering sorrow and anguish kept at bay for four months. So what will be a good song for hot despair and cold reality intermingling like this?

A familiar song came to my mind just now. One of Jane Siberry's, which I fell in love with when I watched the movie, "The Crow", a decade or so ago. Back then, the lyrics spoke to me of grief and loss but only on the surface. How truly sad it must feel to have a loved one die, the young me thought. I never felt that kind of heartbreak before, so I was simply an outsider looking in.

But revisiting the song today of all days, when the rain is falling outside non-stop, has unearthed deep-seated pain made fresh by this weather's gloominess. I now know, with the kind of knowledge that reach down to my very core, how it actually feels to lose a beloved. This song would be my song as I stand in the middle of that cold, heartless rain with both hopelessness and hope intertwined.