Air Apparent

I usually don’t write personal thoughts on my blog. Honestly, there are so many random thoughts skipping around in my brain, it is hard to capture one good thought in a sentence for anyone to understand. But tonight, I must write about the smell in the air. In Texas, you can smell rain an hour before you feel it. It is dust settling, the ozone changing, a sweet smell that tickles your nostrils and you just know rain is on its’ way. Tonight I can smell a wonderful rain scent in the air here in Seattle. It is water saturating earth that has been long dry, the organic smell of sweet dirt being moved around, hot pavements being cleansed, mixed with peppery, wet leaves on their way to decay, so fragrant it almost like I have crushed a leaf in my hand. It rains often here, but it the first rain after a long, hot summer is the sweetest.

When I saw the prompt of FRESH for Illustration Friday, the first and only thing I could think of was the fresh air that would slap me awake when I worked a 430a shift last year. The air would be different depending on the tide, or whether we had a blustery night to blow away exhaust fumes, smoke and leave the most brisk, clean, pure air I had ever inhaled. I would stand on my front porch, looking at the moon and stars for a good 10 minutes or so just experiencing it. That is it - is was, AIR AS AN EXPERIENCE. Some mornings, fog would be so thick that I could taste minuscule particles in my mouth, dense mist would wrap around my face, tickling my skin. And the best would be when blooms abound in pre-dawn, baby birds chirping loudly, the air would be so sweet that I would laugh out loud alone in the dark. I was never an early-riser but each morning I had one of those experiences, I would say a little prayer of thanks for letting ME have that air-encounter in a dark night, under moon and stars.

So with that little story in mind, this is my entry for Illustration Friday for Fresh (Air), illustration by Kim Carney (snorting flower scents up her nose).