smells like rain

Summer is the season of smells. Some are beautiful and full of memories. Freshly cut grass, newly dug earth, a tomato right out of the garden. It's been so hot lately that any hint of rain brings with it a glimmer of hope that maybe tonight will be comfortable for sleeping. Also reminds me of being at summer camp the week that it poured rain one afternoon everywhere except for our campsite. We were in the eye of the storm, you could literally stand, half in the rain and half out. I love the cleasing a good rain brings, the feeling of newness and nourishment.

When I lived in Vancouver I had a very different relationship with the rain, more adversarial. It liked to threaten, tease and soak. That it would rain on any given day was just something you took for granted. I began to appreciate the colour blue. I never had before, always took it for granted that when you look up you see sky, sometimes clouds but usually there is beautiful sky. In Vancouver this was not the case. You looked up most of the time you saw grey. The colours of the sky at various times of day are amazingly different, it can change from the palest, whitest blue to the richest, deep sapphire. Amazing how deprivation enhances appreciation. I try to remember how I felt back then and appreciate the little things, some people say smell the roses, I say look at this amazing world we live in and appreciate and thank it for sustaining us, physically and emotionally.