I dislike Spring. I think it’s the smell. After all, memories are stronger and more easily remembered with a strong smell associated with them. Of course, there’s also something to be said about having other similar chemical compositions in the body to aid in remembering, but that’s neither here nor there. For right now, I’m going to focus on smell. It’s part of what started all this brainstorming after all.

It was raining last night. Thunderstorming. It’s Spring; it happens . . . a lot. I was pretty tired last night, but I guess not tired enough. My mind wouldn’t calm down despite the mental exercises I tried. I just kept going back to the rain in my mind, thinking about thunderstorms and their smell. I had spent part of Wednesday afternoon talking with a girl at Knit Wits about Grandma and Grandpa’s farm when I was a kid as well as all the games we used to play in Aunt Paula and Uncle Mike’s woods. I was reminded of the scent of nature while talking to her, but the scent of the thunderstorm coming in through the open windows was so much more potent and compelling. I couldn’t stand it anymore–I had to go sit on the porch and feel it more closely.

Ian joined me. We talked about our childhoods and the things we missed about them (or didn’t miss in Ian’s case, for the most part). I was feeling drawn to the idea of camping, of hiking in the woods, of spending entire days out-of-doors with nothing between me and the earth but an old pair of sneakers, probably filled with mud. The more I sat on the porch and stared at the rain on the trees and fallen leaves, the more I wished I were in a forest with a book of matches, a couple hot dogs and potatoes, and maybe a sheet for sleeping in. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t want to be 27 anymore. I didn’t want to feel so depressed that I had grown so far from my roots.

The husband and I talked for several hours, eventually moving indoors when the wind kicked up and we were no longer sheltered from the chilly drops which were scattering memories with every wet splat. Spring does this to me. Spring has always been the most depressing of seasons, and I’m beginning to think it’s because of the way it smells, because of the way it brings back even ancient memories from before I was born–a time when people were part of the earth and its cycle was as much a part of us as we were of it. I’m very sensitive to the change in season, and my gut tells me to go outdoors and thrive while my brain keeps me rooted in routine and buildings. Maybe it’s the conflict which drives me as crazy as the scent of a storm. I hate feeling isolated from the world in any manner, and it’s something I think the husband and I need to work on. Maybe we can start taking walks, maybe we can get out more, maybe even just leaving the windows open will help . . . I don’t know. I just know that I hate Spring for making me feel pitiful and broken. Though, if it rains again tonight, I think I’ll end up on the porch again. Spring and I have a lot of things to work through.