Spring

by Angela Sanford

  Fall is my favourite season. With Spring comes heightened allergies with pollens that impact my senses and require me to boost my medication to be able to breathe. Despite this, Spring is also a time when my senses are in overdrive – eagerly anticipating the renewal and nostalgia that each experience will bring. 

   The aroma of vanilla is my preferred smell, often activated during the holiday season, though it can be founding wafting through my kitchen year-round. I also enjoy the fresh scent of laundry from the clothesline, especially the first line of the season.

However, soon to come to life is the sweet, floral scent of Lilac; one of the few floral scents I enjoy. Lilac has a powdery undertone, and some say it has a hint of vanilla, though I’m not inclined to agree. Yet, it would explain why I’m drawn to Lilac – perhaps my subconscious makes the connection between Lilac and vanilla….Whatever it is that appeals to me, it is instantly uplifting. Once the Lilacs have bloomed my morning routine changes to include a deep inhale from the bushes around my deck before I start my day. It is powerful, nostalgic, magical.

   The colours are beautiful and with Spring there are many sights to delight the eyes , but better than the flowers is the deep, luscious green pushing through the earth; the rich, vibrant green that slowly carpets our yard captivates me, only to be broken by the cerulean, blue sky painted with lazily drifting white puffs of clouds after a Spring rain.

   And it is that same Spring rain that is my favourite sensory experience of the season. While I am partial to a lightning storm that energizes me the Spring rain has the opposite effect when it pings off a metal roof above me. That sound brings harmony, peace, and tranquility immediately and my soul is calmed and even the worst of moods is forgotten. I can sit by a babbling brook, ocean waves or under the rain on a metal roof for hours, intoxicatingly lost in the sound and nothing else.

   For me, Spring is too early to enjoy the kinesthetic pleasure of touch, since it means having my bare feet in the sand. There was a time when I enjoyed any opportunity to walk barefoot, feeling the ground beneath me, but now the threat of ticks has halted my barefoot walking except on a beach.

   And for the sense of taste, I’m anxiously awaiting the first roasted marshmallow of the season; its crispy gold brown crust enveloping the sweet, gooey stickiness beneath its coating. These will come with warmer temperatures, when an open fire will also consume my sensory repository with its snap and crackle of a flame fanning from brilliant orange to red against the contrasting, dark skyline.