Vancouver’s rain is a poem that needs no translation
Before I came, everyone warned me: Vancouver’s rainy season is long, long enough to soak a person soft.
But when I actually stepped into that rain, I realized—it didn’t soak me soft, it soaked me through.
In March, the rain in Vancouver falls at an angle. Air masses from the Pacific collide with the mountains, forced to rise and cool, turning into the endless stories this city tells throughout the entire winter. It’s not the kind of downpour that hurts when it hits you, but a fine, dense, almost invisible thread, falling like someone tearing a piece of ultra-thin silk right beside your ear.
I live near Stanley Park and go out every day without an umbrella. The locals don’t carry one either. They wear a rain jacket, pull the hood up, and walk in the rain, moving more calmly than pedestrians on sunny days.
Rain falls on the towering Douglas fir canopy, filtered layer by layer, and by the time it reaches the ground, it has turned into a thin mist. I walk along forest trails, with a dark green canopy overhead and soft, water-saturated moss beneath my feet. The scent in the air is hard to describe—it’s a mix of decaying wood, wet earth, ferns, and distant seawater, like the earth shedding all its disguises on a rainy day, revealing its most primal skin.
A crow stands on a wet branch, shaking its wings. Water droplets bounce off its black feathers like tiny shattered diamonds. It tilts its head, looks at me, caws once, and flies away. The crow’s call doesn’t carry far in the rain and mist; it’s swallowed halfway by the moisture, as if the rain has eaten half of it.
Leaving the forest, I arrive at English Bay. The sea is gray-blue, blending with the sky, indistinguishable where one ends and the other begins. Raindrops fall on the water’s surface, creating countless small ripples, making the whole sea tremble. In the distance, a cargo ship looms faintly, like a drop of ink accidentally spilled on a watercolor painting that hasn’t dried yet.
There are almost no people on the beach. Only one person is walking a golden retriever, the dog running in the surf, wagging its tail, kicking up sand that the rain then washes away. The person walks slowly, their raincoat hood blown askew by the wind, but they don’t fix it, just keep walking like that—casual, relaxed, unbothered—like the city’s attitude on a rainy day.
Suddenly, I remember a word I heard yesterday in a café: “Raincouver.” Locals joke that there are only two seasons here: the rainy season and August. But when they say this, their lips curl up in a smile. I asked if they hated the rain, and holding a coffee cup, one thought for a moment and said, “Hate what? Without rain, where would all these trees be, all this sea, this breathable air?”
He paused, then added, “Vancouver’s rain is alive; it cooks. The moment you step inside your home, it’s simmering soup in the kitchen.”
Actually, the liveliest part of Vancouver’s rainy season is at home. Every household’s windows are covered with droplets, and looking in from outside, the light is blurry, warm, and flickering. Someone is chopping vegetables in the kitchen, someone is reading on the sofa, someone is crawling on the carpet with a child. The rain falls outside, wrapping all the sounds up, leaving only that little warm yellow quiet inside.
I return to my place, take off my wet coat, boil some water, and brew a cup of tea. The rain outside keeps falling, unhurried, as if chatting with me casually. I lift the tea cup, steam fogging the glass, and draw a smiley face on the window with my finger. The rain immediately washes it away.
But I don’t draw it again. Let it wash away.
Vancouver’s rain doesn’t rush. It has fallen all winter and will keep falling for another month. It’s not in a hurry, and neither am I. After all, that Douglas fir outside the window has been in love with this rain for hundreds of years.
And I am just sitting by the window, eavesdropping on a few lines.