just the sound of it

i've been terribly preoccupied with scent lately. in particular, the way it relates to memory. i'm continually amazed by how many of these type of sense-memories i have tied to carleton. the way the music hall or the chapel smell depending on the weather... the flowering dogwood trees outside of great hall in the dusk... then there's the always popular faintly malt-o-meal smelling warm wind, but that's different. that's a conscious memory. these others, they hit me walking down a stairwell, or past the libe, and i'm shocked at how forcibly and instantly i'm taken sometime else.

the point being, i know i've been indulging myself in posts that talk about the smell of things lately--spring in particular. but part of it is how i'm living it, and part of it is how we really have a spring this year (unlike so many other minnesota springs that last a week between the snowdrifts and humidity).

last night the air was full of lilacs. today you could smell the earth and the storm that wanted to come out and play. we didn't get the storm, but tonight there is wind talking in the leaves outside and i may have wished upon a star earlier. things that used to be so common can become rare and precious so suddenly.

the rain falls down and i thought about you

there's been a stunning thunderstorm for the last hour or so. the kind where the cracking of the thunder is so loud you start and the rain falls in torrents that would make an umbrella next to useless. i've been lying around and watching it and trying to figure out how i'll walk to class without drowning. now the thunder's rumbling in long slow peals and i've had to shut the southern windows since the wind picked up. i've missed this.