Spring rain

“… That day the spring rain was flying gently

Layers of xoan flowers fall down…”

(Nguyen Binh)

February of the lunar calendar is the month of xoan flower blooming season. In my memory, spring rain is always associated with the image of purple xoan flowers blooming and fragrant grapefruit flowers.

The impression of spring rain is extremely special, both beautiful, fresh, hopeful, and haunting because of the wet landscape when the rain lasts for months, seemingly never ending.

Those were the days of spring rain covering everywhere. Drizzle flew and landed on the grapefruit trees, custard apple trees, and the rows of Chinese mahogany trees in the garden. The scene made people feel like they were entering a dream or lost in some strange, peaceful and magical land.

The rain was as thick as mist, the rain lingered on the leaves, on the clusters of purple xoan flowers, shimmering like pearls, like sparkling and brilliant diamonds. The skinny and frail trees after the dry, cold winter months suddenly woke up, as if wearing a new coat, soft, youthful and full of spring.

If only spring rain were just like that, dotting on clothes, scarves, hair, and eyelashes, enough to make the jade pot he planted bloom with white, fragrant flowers; grapefruit flowers filled the air with a strong fragrance, enough to make the trees and leaves lush and green; purple xoan flowers blooming with clear, sparkling drops of spring rain like clusters of pearls, it would be wonderful.

The newness and warmth are like miracles of nature, awakening and startling even the most indifferent people. That is also the impression, the feeling, the color, the taste of my childhood that I remember.

But spring rain is also the haunting memory of a deprived childhood. Spring rain seems to want to assert its power over all things in nature. The rain just keeps on falling, lingering, drizzling, and pouring, sometimes for months.

The sky was gloomy, heavy, sad, and gloomy. The air was humid, everything seemed soaked with water, filled with a musty, moldy smell. Pomelo and xoan flowers fell all over the roots, no longer the sparkling, beautiful, fragrant beauty that had once lingered in the memories of so many people. The roads to school, the alleys, the roads to the village fields were slippery, muddy, and soggy. Late nights studying, hearing the sound of rain pattering on the roof, on the banana leaves in the backyard, made me worry about getting up early the next morning to walk six or seven kilometers to the district school, unable to cycle because the road was too muddy. The rain lasted for a long time, clothes could not dry, and in those days, each person only had one or two sets of clothes to wear to school, my mother had to dry them on a wood stove, leaving the clothes to smell faintly of smoke throughout the entire school day.

She cooked with straw, and while cooking, she had to dry the wet firewood in the backyard to save for the next meal. Every morning, I often heard her open the door, look at the sky, and complain that the rain would not stop until Qingming Festival.

So I waited, counting the days until Qingming. There were years when Qingming had passed and the spring rain still continued without stopping. The wait seemed to grow longer, more and more pent up.

Suddenly one day the rain stopped and the sun shone brightly. Everything seemed to wake up, eager, fresh and happy after long days of waiting and anticipation.

*

Now there are almost no more drizzles for a whole month. It is rare to see muddy, soggy roads because of rain. No one has to wear clothes that smell of smoke to go to school. The feeling of waiting for the Qingming Festival for the rain to stop and the sun to shine in the long rainy days has long since disappeared. The Xoan flowers are scarce. The clusters of purple Xoan flowers soaked in spring rain, shimmering and brilliant, are now rare, only sometimes returning in the lyrics of a song that has been heard and hummed throughout youth until now: "The small, pretty purple Xoan flower branch announces the warm spring..."

Changes, even very small ones, often leave no mark, quietly fading into oblivion, but sometimes still evoke the nostalgic feelings of old days.