I have no idea how long it’s been since the last rain. Maybe a month. It feels like a year. It has been hot, viciously and unbelievably hot. The kind of hot where you wake up sweating before sunrise, go through the day with a film of sweat glistening and dripping down your back, take five showers a day and don’t even bother drying off. You’d just go naked if you could, modesty and mosquitos be damned. But it does no good. That’s the problem with heat in these zones. You can remove all your clothes and still feel like the sun is rising in your chest, baking your bones. The heat is inside you.

Rain moved in slowly during the night and I awoke to a cloud filled world of grays and gold and green, the smell of earth and mangoes and the slightly sweet musky smell of banana trunks. You’d think clouds smelled clean. They don’t. They remind me of the smell of wet dogs. 

Rain brings life. And life smells. 

Rain also brings cooler temperatures. It’s already 9:30 and the temperature is only 74ºF. It was 15 degrees higher yesterday at this time. 

Rain in the summer is a joy. It’s supposed to rain all week and I know this brings difficulties which will irritate me in a few days. The load of clothes I just finished will not dry but instead will take on the smell of clouds. Doors will swell and refuse to shut (fortunately I only have two doors in my house). Photos not covered by glass will melt and sprout mushrooms. I gave up using matches to light my stove a long time ago, preferring to use the spark of an empty lighter. When you try to strike a match, the tip just disintegrates, leaving red and pink streaks on the strike strip. 

The road leading up to my house will turn to pudding and I know I’ll fall, requiring even more repairs to my motorcycle. 

Mosquitos will multiply by the billions. 

Yes, yes. There will be problems. But I don’t care.

It’s raining, the air is soft and cool, everything in nature is singing, and for this moment, I’m happy.