Almost every summer there are periods of heavy rains. The better summers saw three day stretches of rain and the worst ones drenched for nine days in lukewarm water, steadily falling from the broken sky. I used to love those long stretches.
As a child, I suffered frequent migraines, but never on the rainy days, as if the water washed my clogged brain. During those days, the usual boredom would get swollen into timeless lethargy, compared to the peacefulness of the grave.
My father, a chain-smoker, would open the front door, take my baby chair, light a cigar of his own making and own growing and sat there, watching the wall of rain. I would sit next to him, on the floor, leaning on his leg, copying his action, trying to singulate a droplet and follow its fall. We sat there for hours without saying a word. I felt incredibly safe and comfortable at those times, safe like never again.
Eventually I would fall asleep and he would carry me to my bed. Upon awakening I would recall the rain-gazing. It would be entangled with my dreams, blurred by the fragile memory, absorbed by the new day and forgotten.
I had never smoked, but each time when someone lit a cigar and as soon as the smoke would touch my nostrils, I smell the monsoon, mixed with black dirt of the Steppe. And I feel safer, I feel home…
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya
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