Rain Smells Like Spring
Rain Smells Like Spring
Have you ever read that book? The one where a bunch of delinquent kids get sent off to the desert to dig holes in the ground in the blistering heat, feeling hopeless and hopelessly tired?
The worn pages of a school library’s copy of Holes find their way into the grasp of my dirt crusted fingers, remnants of a lunch hour spent in the sun staining the gaps under my nails and the creases of my knuckles.
Playing outside is fun, playground grease and gravel embedded soul deep in the knees of my pants. But in my big small city, only one place clears the ringing in my ears and the dryness in my chest. Three times a week after lunch, gathered in the school library, shuffles and giggles of 5th grade students softly cut through the beloved quiet, waiting for an affirmation to disappear into the stacks.
Tucked right between towering dusty rows of dictionaries and freshly printed magazines lay a hidden little nook, perfect for curling up and getting lost in the pages of a new adventure.
Words morph into illustrations under a scrunched nose holding up too big glasses, a vast empty lake whose dusty expanses lie marred by perfectly sized holes, as though someone had taken a hole puncher to the earth.
I admired Stanley, admired Zero. But rather than their determination, I could feel the echoes of exhaustion and endless waiting from the other boys. The feeling of hours bleeding into days, days bleeding into weeks, and weeks bleeding into months.
Time passing like lightwaves in front of my eyes, too quick to see.
Time passing like molasses, crawling its way to the lip of a jar.
I understood. Or at least, I thought I did.
Time passes differently now, it’s ebb and flow irregular with heavy tension and uneven breath.
Ten years later and a suitcase packed for Seattle sits by my dorm room door, the teasing aroma of spring vacation right around the corner.
Our little nook, we call it. The shoebox room doesn’t smell like dusty dictionaries and freshly printed magazines.
Empty containers line every surface and clothes litter the floor and it smells like laughter echoing over stumbling limbs at 3 am, and friendships I’ve never felt before, ones that leave warm tendrils in their wake.
First came the text message
Mom: I think it’s best if you don’t travel for spring break. Mongolia is going into lockdown.
Next came the news reports
First case of novel coronavirus COVID19 in Seattle, WA
Occasionally, I really felt like Stanley, if only because he had rotten luck too.
Suddenly, it smells like, looks like, feels like six months of too much of everything all at once, a dream filled with irregularly taken pills, half finished coffee, empty bottles, and cigarette butts.
March comes swiftly, as if February was whisked away under our noses and into the past. I repack my bags, tossing old papers into a nearby bin, my scarcely touched medication following close behind. Clean surfaces once covered with containers stare back.
Packed to the brim, I follow two suitcases to East Hampton, Connecticut.
March in small town Connecticut feels hollower than I’ve ever felt, as though there is no light or air or sound. Reprieves from the stifling emptiness come in shivering puffs of cigarette smoke and brown liquor swirling around the bottom of an almost empty crystal glass.
Hours bleed into days, days bleed into weeks.
Now, I understand.
Time swirls restlessly above me, my body burrowed under lavender sheets hot enough to keep the desert in my chest achingly dry.
Clutches of stabbing pain invade my conscience, the steps and shouts of little siblings I haven’t seen in over a year thundering outside of my door, begging for company at the dinner table.
I don’t go.
March turns into April before I hear a single firm rap on my door, the deep gravelly voice of my father demanding I put on some warm clothes.
A groan echoes out from under the sheets, reluctance clinging to my bones and half-hearted excuses spilling over my lips.
You don’t need to look nice, he says. It’s not like I care what you look like.
Thick sweatpants and a hoodie find their way onto my body, socked feet tucked into dirty sneakers and a garishly orange beanie shoved unceremoniously over greasy hair.
Three steps to the passenger’s seat of our car and my veins ooze weariness, invisible sandbags dragging behind me as I fight against my traitorous body.
We drive and year-long minutes pass before we pull into a parking lot, a handful of hiking paths weaving between leafless bushes.
Our footsteps crunch over gravel, just slightly out of sync, until we reach a little bench by the silent pond. The aromas of spring, right around the corner, haven’t reached Connecticut.
Yet.
A lighter clicks and then something square is placed into my freezing palms. Marlboros.
This time, the box isn’t hollow.
This time, I try to keep up with time.
We sit for a while, silence broken only by the occasional tell tale flick of handheld flames.
Only when the sky fades into a mixture of grey and maroon do trees whip past us on the highway. Water droplets skate down pink cheeks and I turn, finally ready to ask for help.
An email turns into a video appointment, and wisps of shower steam escape an open bathroom door for the first time in days.
Three thirty minute calls shift into regular appointments, mood stabilizers, and online yoga classes. Time takes a break, waiting knowingly as I catch my breath in April air that smells like spring.
Weeks turn back into days and days become hours again, seconds ticking by the way they’re supposed to as the thundering voices of little siblings clasp their hands tightly in mine as we get ready to set the table.
Glasses line a fully seated dining table, pale yellow wine whispering a tentative new hope as glasses half-full clink together over Chinese take out.
In the morning, I come out for breakfast.
At Camp Green Lake, it finally starts to rain and the holes scattered throughout my hollow chest fill with water. I no longer want to understand the other boys. I want to climb God’s thumb and eat onions and feel determination burn through my skin.
I want to be like Stanley now.
