Rainy days
LAST June 8, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) officially declared the start of the rainy season. Prior to that announcement we had already been experiencing rains in the Metro, especially in the afternoon. After summer’s sweltering heat come the heavy rains.
To some people, the rainy season brings bad news. Floods, landslides, and other disasters usually follow the heavy rains we experience around this time of the year. And they are serious concerns. Protecting lives and properties is the priority during such calamities.
But rains mean different things to different people. Kids love it. One of the more pleasant sights during a downpour are children playing and bathing in the rain. I remember when I was a kid in Tondo, my playmates and I would always play in the rain. Even when our parents forbade it, we would rush to the streets to play.
When the rains were relentless, they caused flooding in our street. We welcomed this because we could swim for hours for free! The water was dirty but I am sure not as dirty as now. Those were fun times. Those were happy days.
When I was a student, rainy days meant more time in bed asleep, especially when there was a typhoon and classes were suspended. Imagine lying on your bed hours listening to your favorite tunes on the radio only getting up when you smell the champorado and tuyo in your kitchen. If this is not bliss, I don’t know what is.
Even today, the sound of falling rain would sometimes remind me of a much simpler time with my playmates. I guess that’s another thing that the rainy season brings — memories. Even for adults, rainy days are opportunities to revisit the child in all of us.
To some lonely souls, rains bring about gloom and sadness. Was it raining when your girlfriend broke your heart? Was it raining when Nanay left the family to work abroad?
Rainy days afford better occasions for introspection. People seem to think better and reflect more, looking out the window amidst the rain. After I left politics in 2013 and returned to my business, I remember many rainy days looking out to our patio and seeing the plants in our garden sway violently to the gustiness of the wind. I remember listening to the hard drops of rain as they hit the nearby koi pond. Somehow, it cleared my head and helped me make important decisions.
It was in one of those moments when I firmed up my decision to go full blast into our diversification to retail. Despite trepidations from some of our team members, we went ahead and pursued endeavors that brought about Coffee Project, Bake my Day, All Day, and All Home.
Rainy days make you reminisce, they make you sad and happy, hopeful and depressed, joyous and lonely. Rains are either tears from heaven or calming drops of water.
But the rainy days symbolize a rebirth. Have you ever noticed how rains make our communities more beautiful? Rains rejuvenate the greens and trees around us. They even refresh the parched concrete roads around us.
The rains probably tell us about life — that even as suffer the mugginess and humidity of summer, we can look forward to the renaissance brought about by the rainy season.
Why am I reminiscing like this on the verge of being melodramatic? Oh, maybe it’s the rain.