Rain has always carried a special scent for me. It falls, it strikes the rooftops, it slides down windows, it splashes on the ground. Every drop becomes a note, an improvised music filling the air—sometimes deafening, sometimes so faint you only notice it later, shining on the sidewalks.
I remember my June birthdays. On the 2nd, the first rain of the season almost always arrived, as if it wanted to mark the day with me. In the morning, it drenched the sky with its curtains of water, then by the afternoon it disappeared, leaving me free to celebrate. It was our secret ritual.
And yet, I don’t love it. It unsettles me, catches me off guard, clings to my clothes, sticks to my skin. I think I prefer snow—silent and gentle. But I must admit that every drop has its own life: tiny, growing, bursting, always beginning again. Water, fragile and immense, is fascinating. It nourishes and heals, but it also destroys.
In Belize, my daughters grew up with its roar. Rain drummed on tin roofs like wild percussion, filling the house with its thunder. Here in Marseille, it falls in silence. Sometimes you’d think it wasn’t raining at all, and yet the street below has already turned into a mirror.
There were times I welcomed it like a friend. After Hurricane Iris, I lifted my face to it, washing my hair in its water. That day, it tasted like rebirth. But most often, it draws me back into my losses. It cleans the streets, but it also carries away my memories. The other day, I waited for it to wash away the traces left by my little Lili. I recognized them among all the others. The rain swept them away, but it didn’t erase my grief. Every memory of her stays inside me, like an endless inner rain.
So, what am I to do with you, rain I don’t really love? I can avoid you, curse you. But I can also write you. When you fall, I open Merlin’s notebook. My thoughts land like your drops on the glass. And maybe, in the end, that is your true gift: forcing me to leave a trace. Because thoughts vanish, they fade. But writing remains.
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