hitting the high note

Petrichor. [PET-ri-kohr] The pleasant smell after a dry spell when rain has finally fallen. 

I used to subscribe to a-word-a-day email list, and this one word has stuck with me for the past five years or so. It’s such a poetic concept for a word; the idea that rejuvenated earth and life has a smell so distinct that it’s worthy of being defined in those three syllables. 

“After the rain” is such a distinct occurrence that I think it involves the senses beyond smell. The feeling after a rainfall, after the heat, and the dust, and the arid earth have absorbed sustenance, is a sensation of renewal, of a clean slate and the ability to go onward in life, mistakes erased or lessened by the cleansing power of the rain.

This evening, my beau, who shall remain mostly anonymous, sparked that recognition of the beauty of the feeling after the rain: he took a deep breath in, and calm came over his features as he experienced the air.  And I do mean “experienced” : it wasn’t only the smell that appealed to him, but the joy of being outside and sensing this age-old, simple cycle of heat and then the cooling, calming rain.

The heat over the past few weeks has been punishing, particularly in this city, where layers of cars, streets, businesses, apartments, and pedestrians radiating sweat formed a cocoon, trapped the heat, and roasted the inhabitants. The rain, occasionally torrential, occasionally light and sweet, has provided the longed-for natural counterpoint to a sweltering, sweating city. And with the broken heat comes the sense that everything is again right with the world, as the clean, new smell of rain hitting a too-dry pavement and browning foliage wafts up into the smiling nostrils of a parched populace. 

All that in a pretty little word. The pleasure of the rain after it vivifies a thirsty earth.