It happens each Spring and it is with great anticipation. Yet, yearly I am at a loss as to properly put into words the feelings evoked from the smell of the first Spring rain. Can there be a more recognizable smell on earth? I think what gets to me the most is that it is a ‘first’ that can be repeated. Who would not give anything to be brought back to the moment of their first kiss, a gift of a single memory that lasts a lifetime though it occurs so early in that life. The scent of a first rain is like that, only each April or May it gives again and again each year without fail.
The birth of a second child is the closest I can compare to a first repeated. Suitable I suppose that Spring itself is thought of as the time of rebirth. I have been blessed with three children and although after the first, I assumed the birth of the second would be feel like old hat. I was wrong. I was surprised at the overwhelming feeling of newness that bestowed me at the hospital. Although so similar in many ways, it was a completely different experience all together. Yet the simplicity of emotions that fatherhood provides was repeated in the overwhelming amount of pride, love, and protection. The same beginning, the same process and the same end result, but yet the emotions felt completely new. And so with our third I knew when going to the hospital that this would be the last of this unique and treasurable first. It saddens me that I’ll never have that moment again. (well….I don’t think we’ll have that moment again).
I am at an age where my emotions seem to be just repetitions of years past ‘first’. But when the rain falls it’s as if the floodgates are pulled free with the aroma of the wind. Recently I read of an Alzheimer’s group that took patients to a local museum and were amazed at the memories and subsequent conversations that were started from these seemingly lost minds when they were in front of these displays on the world and an American history. It wasn’t clear if it was the displays themselves, the atmosphere or other mysteries that triggered this awakening. It was simply held as a victory in itself that the mind awoke, albeit briefly. I think of my grandma who suffers this horrible disease and wonder if a sweet spring rain could awaken a moment for her. I hope it, I pray it.
For my young mind I would be lying if I said there were specific moments in time that come back to me during this season’s light downpour. It is instead more of a general rush of excavation of the soul. A winter’s slumber is stirred awake by a cool April breeze. The trees move at the weight of their budding branches, becoming flexible again in their thawed state. My lungs ache at the thought of trying to suck it all in. Elegant writer I am not, but who among us does not have similar feelings come April showers? For your own sake, I hope not you.
