Earthiness

The weather has been obliging again. Sunshine with a spring feel last Sunday, the same today. After months of cold, wet darkness one day a week becomes a treat. Surely we cannot ask for more.

I've called this blog coffee spoon measure, and today was just such a little measure of life. Not a great day (I woke up late after a turbulent night with more stomach cramps than sleep and felt miserable) but a quite good one nonetheless. I took my harassed body on a walk through the fields north of Lund, let the sun shine on my upturned and smiling face and just enjoyed the smells of the fields, the odd tree and the little patches of grass. The snow is almost gone, only the odd little lonely pile remaining in places, and the ground underneath awakens again. This year it has not been covered by much snow - this has not only been the warmest winter for a very, very long time, but, according to meteorologists, not even a winter at all in technical terms - but somehow the uncovering process can still be felt. For me, at least, mainly because it uncovers the scent of spring, the earthiness of the fields and the grass being the first smells to return.

The smell of spring is in fact a multitude of different smells, and all have their time. They arrive in the same order, every year and are to be held accountable for the giddy madness which overcomes me every year in March. Uncovered earth is the first one and today it reminded me how easily a bad day can become a good one and how the things that make this life so wonderful are small and there for the taking. A walk in fresh air - a measure of life.