A Scent of Summer

Yesterday, I smelled the summer. Not in an overarching kind of way-- this scent was specific and could bare no other label. In the split second of an afternoon inhale I pinpointed it instantly: wet grass beneath the sprinkler's arch.

Remember that delicious smell? Before the era of the town pool when refreshment was a simple yard tool and a hose away? The water's scent becomes richer, prickles with the very minerals afloat within, and mingles with the sweetness of the grass. It's the cleanest, freshest scent that springs into your lungs and catches right in the middle of your chest, radiating a coolness and an earthy abundance.

Remember the feeling? Of that first run through the spray, your toes tickled by the newly damp blades of grass? You'd feel your hair getting soaked, clump by clump and constantly need to peel it off your cheeks as you tumbled over and over through the mist. Remember putting your mouth over one of the tiny holes in the sprinkler to take a drink and how the power of the stream would surprise you, leaving a little pinprick feeling in the back of your throat? Or how you'd put your fingers over several of the holes and pretend to play the piano, the concentrated stream so close to your fingertips making them feel pleasantly numb. There were some icky feelings too--the squelching of the ground as it turned to mud beneath your feet and the blades of grass that would stick to your legs and between your toes. Remember how during the height of day the water made the once fierce sun feel satisfyingly warm against your skin? But then as the day waned, you'd stand back from the water and goose bumps would graze your arms, which soon gave way to the shivers. These meant it was time to seek the warmth of your towel and the tiny terrycloth loops that nestled themselves on your skin and enveloped you in the perfect kind of summer warmth.

If you could hear the sounds again, wouldn't you? The little girl and little boy giggles, the click of the sprinkler as it continued its back and forth path, suggestions squealed to each other, "do a cartwheel through it!", "twist in the air!". There's a lightness in that summer afternoon soundtrack--somewhere in the background are your parents voices, cars passing lazily on the street, a grill top squeaking open.

You can see it too; I know you can. Maybe it's your front yard or your backyard, your neighbor's house or your grandmother's, but there is in some sprays of the sprinkler a rainbow set among the drops, brightly dusting you with its color. There is your little girl head, leaning over the streams and watching as your hair dances its own water ballet. You are in a tableau of summer--scampering about in a season whose very nature makes us freer.

It is a state of watery, warm, exuberant, and exhilarating perfection.