The Emotions Stirred by the Sound of Raindrops on My Window

There’s a certain comfort in the sound of raindrops on my window. It is a forgotten song, timelessness lingering within the air as a beat driving down deep within me into something deep. It is not only water hitting against the glass; it is a voice: whispery, demanding, homesick. And again and again and again, I listen.

The raindrops tonight like a thief, slipping silently into the peaceful crannies of my room and swelling up my spaces of thought. It begins as a tentative whisper, drumming against the glass before finding the confidence to pour in sure rhythms. I shall sit at the window with eyes fixed on the droplets coalescing, following down their uncertain but lovely trajectories, as life itself proceeds—never in straight lines, always managing to do so.

I used to believe there was something quietly holding me to rain. I always leaned in with both my palms and forehead against the icy windowpane, where the world outside melted into soft grays and blues below as I believed these tiny drops were mere messengers peeking through to overhear secrets being whispered from the sky. On certain stormy afternoons, I would close my eyes and let the shower sing me into an odd, dreamlike state in which time was not zero and nothing else mattered but what moment I was in.

The various methods through which the rain speaks to me now came to me as maturity started creeping in. Rain had turned into a repository of memories for me, an emotional cue for those very things most hidden beneath the surface. On certain nights like this one, rain could quite easily speak of nostalgia, recalling sounds of voices that have stopped coming my way, even the warm grip of hands no longer clasped. I recall being at a window very much like this with fingers contorting my phone, his voice on the other end becoming far away, and the distance between expanding to agonizing proportions. Just like this, slow and rhythmic, rain would come down as if it were softening the harsh edges of goodbye.

Always brings to mind him. Not in pain but more so in acceptance, quiet and calm, the manner by which one would remember a person who used to feel like home. The rain brings back memories that not all things are going to remain; there are those which, however hard we cling to them, would pass between our fingers like water.

It is not everything melancholy concerning the rain. Happiness has always been an ingredient of love within it. It has been the soundtrack in the background upon which stolen kisses under an umbrella could be squeezed, dawn whispers of confession, and slow dancing in dark rooms. The laughter would be within the open window, bare feet on wet pavement. It would also be hands grasping for one another in that cold. It carries, within it, the sorrow of loss as well as the warmth of belonging, a contradiction that somehow seems to make perfect sense.

Tonight, the rain keeps its soft minstrel, and I let it take up residence in my insides. I observe the drops and let them race down the window, following with my fingertip their courses and pretending they are carrying my thoughts away. And this time, I am entirely right to let myself not fight the stirring of feelings. I let myself remember, let myself feel.

Nay, the rain was always mine. All the time, I was discovered in my weakest moments. Its soothing beat has held my heart and told me truths that I was not always prepared to know. Yet it has never abandoned me. It always returns, tapping on my window softly, hoping for me to listen.

And I listened that night. And for the first time in many months, I don't yearn for that Presence. I merely am present, allowing this rain to fall about me as though reminding me it always manages to start anew despite that most tormented of rains.