I remember rain. Well, more clouds than rain, but yes rain is deep in my make-up. With a day like today, especially, I tend to linger in the smell and dampness. Then of course I turn inward and ask the real question: will my blow-out recover from this? (It kind of took me a long time, okay?)

Wet hair notwithstanding, when I smell rain, I think of the color green. Green does have a smell. In fact, there is one place where I have lived that embodies this, and that is Washington State. They call it the Evergreen State. No surprise there. And to be honest, I don’t know how green it smells anymore since I haven’t lived there in over a decade. The fact that Washington may “smell green” means something entirely different in this day and age.

But back when the rain fell over Washington with more frequency, it filled my senses. The smell, the sensation, and the sound surrounded. Sometimes it presented like a mist. You proceeded through your day, all the while moving through a grounded cloud.

The trees, in their fixed positions, seemed to be poised in constant anticipation for the next visit of precipitation. And in between contact, the smell that the rain has planted emits from leaves and branches and trunks. The aromatherapy of the Pacific Northwest.

I know that’s flowery and romantic, and when you are stuck on the 5, or the 405 or whatever-5 you are on, this is not what you are smelling or thinking. It is fully realized when you are on foot, outside, amongst the greenery of the Evergreen State. Today, I got a little slice of that in my Colorado home, and it was so very welcome.

Here’s to that smell, the seedlings of spring reaching for air as the rain nurtures their purpose, and here’s to keeping your blow-out dry.