By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

LAST night, I waited for the rain. I knew it was coming our direction because the clouds blanketed the southern horizon, moving slowly towards the north, slowly deleting the sight of taller buildings.

I miss the rain splashing on my face, my whole body, and drinking from it. We used to get out in the rain when we were children, when long exposures to it didn’t give us colds or any other diseases caused by nanoparticles of pollution gathered as it falls through the atmosphere, including mirocplastics, dust, sulfur oxide, soot and others. While rain cleanses the atmosphere from pollutants, it can also transport the same to the ground, affecting water quality for marine and human consumption.

Microplastics have been found in our food chain, not only through food processing and handling, but increasingly, through contamination of the water and the soil where food is grown and raised. Many research studies have found microplastics in seafood, salt, sugar, honey, rice, tea bags, poultry and meat products, fruits and vegetables, and even bottled water.

Yesterday, when I watched the rain and felt it on my face for the first time in a very long time, I forgot about microplastics. I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue for a taste of the raindrops. It tasted fresh, fresher than the distilled and mineral water found in bottles. I told myself, better to ingest microplastics from the raindrops than from a bottle. But I would caution others not to do the same, especially because our bodies respond differently to various threats to our well-being. Especially, undetected threats, so incredibly small, invisible to the naked eye.

Even the naked eye often can’t see what’s already plainly visible. Sometimes we refuse to see, even if there’s “clear and present danger”. We choose what to see and who to see, because what we see can sometimes be a threat to our own sanity.

 

Swimming in a raindrop
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I went out into the rain today
and stuck out my tongue
to taste you in the raindrops
from the clouds, that
gathered particles of your sweat
blown by the gentle wind
snatched by the heat

I rolled you over, in my mouth
cradled you for long, thinking
you will drown, if I swallow

you taste like salt,
you smell of the sea
and I am a mermaid, swimming
inside a raindrop

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