A Full Summer Assault on the Senses

The smell of sunblock makes me think of summer, beachs, swimming in the lake. Everytime. It's like a flashback of association.

I've not spent much time at the beach or the pool. Or outdoors really. As I've gotten older, I've become more of a hermit indoor kitten. But the association is there everytime I put on sunblock.

I do pretty good most of the year keeping that pasty indoor look, but summer is tough. Mere driving to work will leave me with a nice trucker's tan by the end of the summer. It's starting to get noticably obvious that I'm lopsided. Even when I don't have my arms together. Even with sunblock.

Nothing says summer like a trucker's tan.

But along with the smell of sunblock, there are other signs of SUMMER. The spring peepers chirping the night away. I love that sound. I'd get home from school at night and stand for a moment in the warm evening air listening, recalling the nights in my end bedroom with the windows open.

There's the warm/cool evening air itself. Warm from the day, but cooling with the sun having slipped below the horizon. My favorite time of day. Especially once I got out of high school and could set my own schedule. I'm nocturnal. It's actually hazzardous to wake me in the morning, or come within a twenty-yard radius. Hubby's had a few close calls.

Watermelon makes me think of summer. Sitting on the porch as a wee one trying to spit the seeds as far as my big brother. I still can't. I can beat him up, now, though, if I had to. =)

I love the big puffy white clouds on summer days. I never saw shapes in the clouds as a kid. Maybe I had defective clouds. But on bright sunny days, we'd watch the clouds' shadows move across the golf course. Blue sky, lush green grass, dandelions. That means summer has arrived.

That's smell, hearing, touch, taste and sight.

Many writers only pick one or two, usually sight. Sometimes sound. Smell is my favorite.

Ever notice the smell of a swamp after the rain. Yeah-- yum. Or the smell of a natural lake. How about that after-storm ozone scent. Or the smell of bar-b-que, which is different from the scent of a bonfire. Smells, like any scent, can conjure images, recollection, and mood.

What smell do you associate with summer?

• Novel Progress: 1 agent has requested and recieved partial
• What I should be doing: grad school homework
• Current Song: Fallin' by Alicia Keyes