Sofia Abbas

Lyrics from my English cover for Stray Kids’ “Cover Me”

It feels like a law of the universe that rain brings nostalgia with it. 

Rain reminds me of my mom, who loves thunderstorms so much that she will literally travel for them. A lot of people think she’s crazy, but I understand. She grew up with the steady seasonal rhythm of monsoons washing away the dirt and grit of everyday life, sweeping and swirling through the flooded streets and down the drains and away. Rain is the closest she can get to a home that doesn’t exist anymore. A home that has long since disappeared in the drifting sands of time and death. A home that lives on solely in nostalgia and storms. 

Rain reminds me of my dog who would walk through every puddle she could find with her water-logged tail wagging proudly and her nose twitching at the familiar scents of our neighborhood made new by the precipitous downpour. Rain reminds me of my grandparents, of the precious winter days when it gave me an excuse to beg a ride off my dad instead of biking to school, of my first time wandering the cobblestoned street of Ashton Lane to my favorite tea shop, of childhood and home and family and all the things that are so far away right now. Rain reminds me of ‘adventuring’ across our foggy campus for midnight snacks with my roommate in undergrad, and of the cloudy New York skies when I looked back to her apartment and realized we had grown too far apart for our friendship to be reconcilable. 

Rain feels like all I have left of my heart, sometimes. It’s the coldness, the brokenness, the depth and darkness and despair. And yet, even if that’s all that’s left, there’s beauty in that too, isn’t there? Sometimes the way to find light is to dive into the darkest fathoms of ocean depths instead of struggling towards the sun while the currents rip you apart. Sometimes hope comes from accepting that change is irrevocable, that what existed before can never exist again no matter how many times it’s rebuilt. Existence is a tangled, fleeting confluence of time and trajectory, so fragile that it can never be described by something as simple as human words. We are buffeted by an infinite array of existences with every breath, and then we exhale and live anew. 

Like nostalgia, and like many things in life, storms are beautiful when you watch from afar. They’re not quite so romantic when you’re stranded at their mercy. Awe seems like the right word for them then — wondrous and terrifying and heart-stopping all in one tempestuous breath. We can try to hide or barricade ourselves away from them, hearts pounding with the fear of what we have become, or we can tip our face up to the sky and dance in the rain. 

Today, the rain reminds me of running down the streets with my friend after an evening of drinks, giggling breathlessly until we reach our cars and promise to text when we get home safely. It reminds me of my little brother spending hours meticulously cooking and plating for my family that we all savor without thinking of the mountain of dishes left for us to clean. It reminds me of the neighborhood hawk I’ve come to recognize, of the cat that peers into my downstairs window every night, of the dog across the street who is always at his most excited when my neighbor takes him for walks in the rain. It reminds me of my best friend calling me to recap the event both of us were at during a tornado warning while her cats vocally register their disapproval at being stuck in the guest bathroom with only two toys to play with. It reminds me of writing vast universes into existence from the coziness of my bed while I watch the rain fall outside my window, of the quiet snowfall blanketing the Redwood forests I love with all my soul.

It reminds me of myself, and of all the life I have left to live. 

All my love,

Sofia