In Texas, rain heralds the end of a hot, dry summer and the beginning of fall. The quality of these warm, rainy days always conjures memories of Japan. Today the rain was light and little more than a mist, just a dampness in the air, really. In Japan, on days like this, I'd open all the sliding doors and all the windows. The old tatami exuded the scent of hay. The paper in the fusuma softened. And I soon learned why Japanese envelopes were not gummed.
In Texas, a rainy day is an anomoly, a special gift from the gods. In Japan, rainy days were the norm. In the winter I sickened of gray, rainy days, of cold creeping into my bones. In the summer, I was maddened by mold and mildew, of clothes hung out to dry that never dried. There was no breath of air to be had; the very air smothered and oppressed.
Now back in the land of drought, I raise my face to the blessed rain.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
September 16, 2002
Comments
Ah so. We had rain in Phoenix, too, a week ago or so ago, a soft, steady rain that evoked early summer and the Tsuyu season in Japan. It made me want to eat soba. I remember loving the rain in Japan since, like you, I grew up in a drought ridden land. As kids anytime a rare rain fell, we would run out and dance in it. Even now. everyone in my office feels compelled to trot to the door every few minutes and monitor the few storms we get, praying all the while that they don't pass too quickly. So, yes, the rain in Japan. The only annoying element about it for me was the large puddles that dotted the parking area in front of the teachers' housing, into one of which I would invariably step in my leather pumps.
Comment by: jbl. Posted September 17, 2002 11:39 AM.
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In Texas, a rainy day is an anomoly, a special gift from the gods. In Japan, rainy days were the norm.