I Can Smell It

I would like right now, for even as short as one day, to have that smell of rain; the dampness causing the scent of earth to rise and fill my senses, even if it means becoming speckled or splattered by mud and detritus of leaves. The dry season has been long, and we didn't really benefit from the late summer monsoons this side of the mountains so, instead, everything is coated with plain old dust - frame, wheels, chain, shoes, socks, legs, brain.

It is now five hours after the morning ride - shower, change of clothes, work on some bikes, relax a bit, water the plants - and I still smell dust with each inhalation. At this point I can't tell how much is physical, a thick olfactory coating, and how much is mental, an ingrained memory. I suspect mostly the latter, but if I were to shake my head from side to side, head-bang to Metalica, a cloud of fine particulates might very well explode from each ear, a lobotomy reveal a nice coating inside the cranium. 

Like the presidential election, the end of the dry can't come soon enough.