It has been hot in Singapore.
Not that it never is. But this now-Americanized body always takes some adjusting to the 90-degree heat and sweat-like-a-hormonal-teenage-boy humidity that assaults you the moment you land.
But it's bearable because you know there's always the inevitable break from the swelter. That floor-rumbling, tree branch-crackling, giant-fat-drops-of-rain, monsoon-like storm that chases the birds into hiding and clears the air.
It finally came this morning, and I immediately thought of soup.
Which is a good thing, because there's always a massive, earthenware pot of it on the stove in this household.
What's in the soup this morning? It's a little unclear.
"Um, pork," Erlinda the maid says, having brewed this latest batch from the usually imprecise instructions of my Mum, whose soup wizardry is, like many good cooks', purely instinctual and a complete mystery to any observer.
Mum basically looks in the dozens of little baggies of Chinese herbs she has tied up in her refrigerator, sniffs at them, takes various handfuls out and gives them to Erlinda.
But, no matter. This morning, there is soup on the table. Pork soup.
I slurp it up on the front porch, feeling the rain splashing on my bare feet and ignoring the neighbor giving this half-wet, back-from-America madwoman the fish eye.
I take in the thick smell of rain and I think: It's been too long.
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