GREEN, IT'S GOOD FOR YOU.

Maija called yesterday and told me about her wonderful detour - one of those days where things don't quite work out the way you expected, but end up leading to so much more. Hers was long, mine was a mini one, but I felt like I could connect with the idea. For me yesterday involved a three hour walk in the Brackenridge Field Laboratory. The rain only came down in a mist, the earth was wet but not squishy, and we walked along Town Lake, identifying plants and breathing cool air, and being out in the wilderness in a way I haven't been in years.

There's something downright good about the way the earth smells after it's been raining. Not concrete, not oil slicked, not human-tortured earth. Not talking about that at all, although I will admit a soft spot for wet asphalt. No, the scent that we found yesterday was all about new leaves, overturned earth, old grasses soaked until they're fragrant. The fields we walked through are still sleeping; it's winter for them. It's that slumbering scent that gets me, that I didn't even realize I'd missed.