First, I Smelled It.

Deeply asleep in the middle of my huge bed, a seemingly omnipresent feeling of gratitude for the fan blowing cool air over my body. The window is open, the big glass doors are also and it's almost like sleeping outside except really, really comfortably.

Around 4 am, I feel a shift in my awareness.

Something is pulling me out of the seductive depths of sleep, up up up, and up some more.

A smell.

A familiar yet almost forgotten smell.

I try to not make words in my mind. I try to just feel this smell with my eyes closed. And I do. It's sensual, it's visceral, it's dynamic, it's rich.

The smell of rain on dirt.

The smell of life, of earth, of mustiness on very, very thirsty dirt.

"Here it is" I smile quietly.

She is coming. The rain.

The rain that has been gone since October, the rain that we're all talking about - even though we very possibly will be complaining about it in a few weeks. I wait.

That's when Lila starts barking and that's when the sky gently opens up.

A drizzle. A sweet, sweet drizzle that lands like an answered prayer over each leaf in my yard and over the thousands of trees in the jungle.

I imagine a common sigh of pleasure.

THANK YOU.

Then I hear it. The smell is still loudest but yes, I hear it.

I reach for my phone to share the news with someone I love.

"It's here," I say quietly.

It's here and it's going to be here for a while. It will quench the thirst, it will fill the wells. It will bring chaos, too. The three riverbeds will eventually start flowing and I have no way of knowing whether they will become deeper than what my quad or car can cross. This is my first summer living in the country and I guess that there are going to be surprises.

But tonight, the smell.

The blessed, blessed smell.