The smell of newly wet pavement

It rained tonight. It started the moment I stepped out of the gym, sweaty and hot, and I was met with pelting rains that quickly cooled me off and made me wet. I love the smell of dry pavement made wet by rains anew. As it stays dry here for months on end, the pavement gets to be very dusty and the rains always create this fantastic smell when meeting this months' old dust.

When I got home to check on the greenhouse, as I always do when I return from a day at the shop, I was startled by the stillness of the sagging garden, made heavy under the weight of the just-finishing rains. Everything becomes more intimate, closer when there is moisture in the air. The fog does that to me. Make me feel like the whole world is right at my feet. Funny thing with the fog though, is that while it creates a feeling of everything being so intensely close, the fog horns bear witness to a far off sea trawler that I cannot see, one who is not so close to my self.

So the garden was heavy, still, warm, wet, inviting, close. The greenhouse was in fine shape, as usual, with no vents opened today because the west winds(always those west winds) sweep in and cool things down so significantly. Not needed!!!

As I walked home from the BART, the smells of wet spring flowers filled my nostrils and head with pleasure. Somewhere near my walk is a 'brugmansia suaveolens' which has delightful, downward hanging trumpets and is very fragrant at night. The chemical make up of the smell, the thing that the human nose can register and recognize, seems more "traveling" when the rains have come. Perhaps too, it's due to the lack of winds to blow the fragrance from out of my reach.

Did I ride today? So glad finally that I left the bicycle at home, as the rains would have wreaked havoc on my bald road bike tires and handling overall. There is also the oil slick that arrives with those rains. So, not riding proved to be a wise move.....

I keep feeling such grand satisfaction at the state of the garden tonight; a new experience seeing it at this stage in the rain. Usually, the rains come at or right past "harvest" so everything has finished blooming. The crystalline white of my 'lilium regale', wet and dripping heaviness, has an interesting look to it that deserves to be noted and remembered. I just hope that I do not overlook such small things as that each day as it arrives..........