From the window

Looking down into the gully, the river caught my eye the river always ran high and fast at this time of year, Spring. My favourite time of the year, the river was filled to the brim from the winter. The warm weather was returning.

The river was fed by melt snow and ice from the surrounding area. Its banks rarely overflowed, but this time they did. The water spilling and flowing to the maple and elm roots, that had grown next to the river. The water formed a miniature pond formed around the thick maple roots. Creating a bath for any animal who wished to bathe in the coolness of the water under the spring warmth and sun.

I could see seven ducks resting in the cold water, kicking their feet, and grooming their feathers with their beaks. They’ve always enjoyed the water including the falling rain, there are more males than females. Male ducks are more colourful than the females, their colourful feathers shining with the reflection of water. Having a conversation between one another, it sounded intense with the ducks quaking becoming loud and high pitched.

It had rained the last few days, today was no different it was raining, but without wind, so the drops fell straight down, and when I opened my window of my old place a bit, the air rolled in, and I smelled the sweet, pure smell of spring rain of ‘petrichor’ came in. It is days like that I am glad to have smell as one of my senses.

Even in the fading light of the day, the landscape changes almost by the hour as the rain continues. As the lanterns were lit in the afternoon and the area was illuminated, a new sight would be revealed. Throughout the woods, nature grew, growing in clusters of luscious colours. The daffodils, hostas and petunias were budding in clumps and there was a developing orange glow like a colour filter on a photo as the sun was lowering.

There was a path worn down by generations of fawns and bucks and other smaller creatures as they crossed from one place to another with the changing of the seasons. I had seen the comings and goings of the animals since I was a young girl. I often saw a wrangle of doze clustered on a dry patch of grass and in the afternoons, some would sleep, while others ventured on.

Others ate lazily or simply gazed into the distance and others just relaxed. They are the lunch ladies, the ladies who lunched and lazed around every day, having conversations with each other. There really is no sight that can compare to the beauty of nature. I think that they enjoy the smell of the rain hitting the ground too. I imagine them looking to the sky and feeling the first drops come, I do wonder if they feel the pleasure and relief of the smell of petrichor.

My room was full of shadows even though it was just early afternoon. My shadow stretched across the room, I struck a match and lit the candles on my desk and arranged them around the room until the room seemed cozy and inviting matching the scent of petrichor filling the air. The candles lit my room, with the candles lit the shadows in my room shrunk. The candles had no scent and brought warmth to the room.

After a dry spell of weather because of winter, I now needed music to celebrate the return of the rain. I flipped through my record shelf, trying to find something that matched the feeling and smell that matched this moment. I'd had the same record on the turntable for the last two weeks. It was summertime music, wrong time of the year for it but the music is sensational. It can help with any sad time.

Summertime music that made you want to cruise around with your windows down and spend long evenings in the warm sun. With the most popular songs that you could just have play all day, every day. I cannot wait for summer to come.

But for this moment, I needed something softer.

I reached for the albums that my parents listened to when I was a kid. The music you heard on family road trips to see family or while dinner was being made. I carefully tipped one of the records out of its sleeve and caught it by its edges. Flipping it, with the tips of my fingers examining it for scratches; still in pristine condition.

We upgraded our stereo as kids, because we had it since I was a baby, so it was time for an upgrade. The stereo was gone, and we had the record player, it was fascinating at the flick of a switch, the arm lifted and set the needle on the record. Even now after all these years, seeing it in action brought me joy.

I was in awe at the automaticity of the player, I must have assisted it more than once over time. I had been told my times to keep my hands to myself enough times, but I wanted to feel the force behind the motor and wonder how it worked.

As the first guitar chords played, I smiled at the urge and slipped into song with the woman on the record I knew all the words now.

I knew all the words now, I had music to go along with the fragrance of spring rain and the glow of the candles. What else could make this moment enjoyable?

The answer, nothing.

Being in this moment was something that I had been practising and kept reminding myself of for years, living in the moment and being happy.

For many years, I'd been quite good at making other people comfortable and assisting others to enjoy themselves. Now it was my time, to be at ease and live in the moments.

I stood in my room, taking in all the feelings that filled it. Close my eyes and scanned through my body as the sensations entered me. I looked and felt for what to do next to continue this feeling, it was reading.

I remember turning the last page of a book, before letting out a sigh and closing it shut. Sliding it onto my white Ikea bedside table, beneath my lamp. Wondering which of the books from my to be read stack would come next.

So that's what I wanted, to start a new book to get lost in a new story. I went over to my bookshelves and squatted down to look at the spines in my stack. I was frugal about some things but not books, they are the key to the imagination. Key to the senses, words that make us see and feel the senses.

I bought them generously and shared them, gifted them, borrowed them, and kept them too long without any guilt. I probably have a few to many overdue books to return to the library.

I like to know as little about a book as possible before I started it, I didn't want to know any of the twists or turns. Until I was taking them, experiencing them. So, I relied on my bookseller, my librarian and friends for new books and ideas of books to read. If one of them said ‘I think you would like…’ I cut them off right there and just said ‘yes please’ it rarely failed me and I would have a new book before anyone knew it.

I picked up each book and turned it over in my hands, I was going on instinct reacting to the title, to the cover art, the font, and the way that it felt in my hands. There was one with a cover the colour of poppies, title that sounded like an expression.

I had always known, but rarely found it, that books can hold the solid weight of hours of reading in it, hours of imagination, peace, different feelings. Reading holds so much including the feeling of ‘petrichor’ in the world of stories.

I carried the book to the chaise, by the window and climbed on. The room was a cool with the fresh air coming in. So, I tossed a throw over my legs and settled back as comfortable and happy as I could be I took a slow breath and let it out started with chapter one ‘petrichor from the window.’