a rainy season.

This week, the rainy season in Shyira is making itself known. I am currently trapped inside the Shyira Chalet. It is positioned with a hill at the front door and a cliff under the back porch. During storms, the hill becomes a waterfall and a river flows over the kitchen’s stone floor, to the back porch, escaping through the cracks in its wood.
The roof of my apartment is tin. When it rains, it sounds like the Atlantic found its way to Shyira and is being poured over my head. Sometimes, it wakes me from my sleep, and hymns me into a deeper sleep. It’s hard to hear anything else, and during the day it keeps people still.
Shyira is in the clouds. So, almost every morning, there is a cloud over the valley in front of my apartment. When the rain comes, the huge mountains disappear into a white backdrop. The trees by the chalet porch are under the command of the wind and they are especially noticeable because of the disappearance of the world behind them. The chickens ebb to find their shelter. I’m not sure what happened to Tuki, the cat. She doesn’t seem to have made it inside, and she’s a bit of needy cat when she wants to be.
The rain in Shyira makes me want to continue inhaling until the storm ceases. One of my favorite smells in the U.S. is the rain. It picks up the smallest amounts of earth from the pavement, and carries them right into your nostrils. They feel full of something honest. Here, there is no pavement, and there is plenty of earth, and it seems that the storm finds that, and brings all of it to your nose. The small, musty smell grows and brims up to your chin, your mouth, your nose.
The rainy season demands your attention by conquering one sense, then another, then another.