Summer Rain

Early last evening we stepped outside to drive to the movies and smelled a scent we rarely smell here in Washington - light new rain hitting hot cement. That's a Utah smell, a Queen's Creek smell, a Leavenworth smell. It's not a Seattle smell, at least not very often, and definitely not a Seattle in March smell.

After three weeks trapped inside I was vulnerable. The smell, that lovely wet cement smell, drifted to me and caught me unawares almost buckling my knees with its potency. Instantly I was in other places, different seasons; my children babes, marriage brand spanking new.
Sweet stolen kisses under blueberry bushes; watching my first child crawl, keeping her from eating leaves in the hot summer park. First son standing under the zoo sprinklers reveling in the spontaneity, the freedom from rules, hardly able to contain his happiness, his joy. Second son gathering all the bats, all the balls, all the neighborhood for a game - if he can beat the rain. Last son knighting his friends, cape and crown askew, king for his birthday. A West Mountain day, all of us trying to bring the hay in as lightning flashes in the distance and black clouds blow the threat of rain our way.

How can one small scent contain so much; multitudes?

"Dandelion Wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered...Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in."

                                                                                                           Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

                                                                                                            
One small whiff and my heart pounds thru the memories...

...a brand new box of crayolas, the one with a million colours

...freshly mown grass mixed with gasoline

...sweet babies; toddler arms

...bread in the oven

...my sons' necks, my daughter's hair, the oil of my husband's skin and his warm breath in the early hours of morning

...the mingling of kettle corn, funnel cakes, cows steaming and cotton candy roastingspinning at the County Fair

...soft kitten paws

...hot off the press newsprint

...the first strawberries of the year

...the oil seeped into cement smell of a mechanic's garage

...clean hay in a lovely old barn

...after all these years, still, my mom's perfume, my dad's Old Spice

...a freshly cut real Christmas tree

...plowed fields, moist dark earth overturned

...thin pancakes crisping their edges in sizzling popping bacon remains

...the chlorine of the college swimming pool

.. my best friend's Lysol clean home

...clothes warm out of the dryer

...a crisp new book, still stiff in the bind

...popcorn and butter in a movie theater

...peaches, peaches, peaches, never enough peaches
...snow in the air

Image1  Lucem , Image2 josefa fritz barham