The Sound of Rain
I don’t know why.
Back in high school, I rather liked rainy days.
I liked standing by the hallway window, simply watching the rain fall outside.
I liked the soft, steady sound of drizzle.
That repetitive rhythm had a way of calming my mind.
It made me feel safe.
Even the noisy sounds around me seemed to lower their voices in the presence of rain.
Wrapped in the sound of rainfall, I felt as though I had stepped into a private space of my own.
Amid the bustle of a school day, the quiet brought by rain felt as if the world itself was holding its breath—
as if it were gently granting me a moment of rest.
The rain became a kind of curtain, offering me comfort,
pushing away voices, footsteps, and even anxious thoughts about the future.
The noises of reality are sharp and rude; they keep poking at me.
Yet the sound of rain, though clearly a noise, quiets even my thoughts and stills my trembling heart.
It feels as if it is telling me that it’s okay to do nothing.
Perhaps it is because its very nature is different.
Human voices constantly pull at me, demanding interpretation.
Rain simply exists.
It is a noise that asks for nothing.
Rain falls simply because it falls.
Naturally.
Just because.
Just
Perhaps the things that happened to me were also like the sound of rain.
Sleeping only two or three hours a day while studying sixteen to eighteen hours,
ending up in the emergency room three times—
and still failing the college entrance exam.
Loving someone as if I would give them everything,
only to be discarded as they weighed my “conditions” and walked away.
Grinding and clenching my teeth because I could not bear the weight of responsibility and achievement,
eventually giving everything up, returning home, and becoming someone trapped inside.
Perhaps all of these were simply like rain.
They just fell.
There was no reason.
They were simply that way.
Maybe none of these were causes, but scenery—
passing rain clouds that didn’t need to be interpreted, just passing by.
It would have been nice if I could have blocked them with an umbrella,
but I can also get wet for a while and dry again.
Even after pouring down like a storm,
the sky returns with a clear, innocent face, as if nothing had happened.
Not clinging to it, not forcing myself to forget—
just looking up and saying, “It’s raining,”
might be what true healing really is.
Of course, I will probably keep asking why it rained.
But I hope that one day,
I will ask not in resentment, soaked to the bone—
but simply,
just because I am curious.
The Smell of Soil
Before and during rain, the smell of soil always rises.
There is a substance called geosmin, produced by a microorganism in the soil known as actinobacteria.
Geosmin is the main component of the smell of earth, and humans are remarkably sensitive to it.
Just before it rains, humidity in the air rises rapidly.
This allows geosmin particles near the ground to diffuse into the air or cling to soil particles and spread.
As atmospheric pressure drops and winds shift,
these scent particles are carried closer to our noses.
Before the sound of rain reaches us,
the smell of soil always arrives first.
That scent becomes a powerful trigger for memory—
the moment you smell it, memories from those days return.
The naturally rising scent of earth before rain,
the feeling that people’s colorful umbrellas looked cute,
memories of staying at a friend’s place during Chuseok to study instead of going home,
walking to the school library under such heavy rain that it felt like visiting a valley,
running around the soccer field during PE class despite not being able to see even an inch ahead—
Perhaps it is enough to find meaning
simply within those moments,
just those kinds of ordinary things.
The Umbrella
I just need one friend to share an umbrella with on the way home.
I simply want to live helping people so that no one gets hurt or has their daily life collapse because of the rain.
That is all I wish to do.
If possible, I hope the friend who walks under the same umbrella with me is someone full of love—
someone who rejoices in what I do,
perhaps even more passionately than I do.
And in the midst of all that,
I hope we sometimes fold our umbrellas and run into the rain,
with clumsiness and playfulness.
I hope to experience
gentle irregularities
within an otherwise predictable everyday life.
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