Harmonious Sensations of Innocence

For some reason, the other day, I thought of the smell of fresh mown grass and missed that smell from Oregon. As soon as I thought about that, a cacophony of smells and other senses that I miss about Oregon came to my head...the smell of new rain (although, admittedly - "new" rain doesn't happen often), the sound of the ocean waves with children playing in the background, a field covered with daisies and sitting around making necklaces from them, sitting under the shade of a tree reading a book on a rare hot sunny day, the thrill of looking outside and seeing a blue sky which causes you to automatically want to drop whatever you are doing and enjoy it because who knows how long that will last, the simple sight of a real (non-palm variety) tree, driving down the windy part of Terwilliger road in the fall, crunching dry autumn leaves under your feet (although again, admittedly - "dry" leaves don't exist that often)...

These are all things I do not get in Las Vegas. Sure, the sky is blue - but it's ALWAYS blue, so you never get that same thrill of excitement, I sometimes get the feeling of dread of having to endure hot weather in the summer! In fact, when it looks like it is going to rain here, that is when I get the thrill - because it's something different and out of the norm. And there is no darn place to just go and sit on grass and read a book in the park - at least anywhere close by that I have found.

So I was sitting at the piano that same night dinking around, and I started messing with this thought into a song that is very much in progress still, and its' title (which is the coolest part of the whole song) is "Harmonious Sensations of Innocence."

the smell of the fresh mown grass or new rain on the dry cement ground
the taste of the salt in the air or the waves crashing around
the daisies all over the grass little girls making wreaths for the boys in their class with the tetherball foursquare and hopscotch and jumprope and laughter and running and swinging and sand in their toes

And that is all I have so far, and then my session with some older adults yesterday we ended up talking about some different sensations from their childhood that they remember - and I thought - how cool - I mean, what beautiful poetry, just the smells and sights and feelings of our childhood. There were people who talked about coming home to fresh baked cookies every day, the feeling of being chased around by a favorite Palomino, sitting under a tree by an upstate New York stream, and my favorite: the fresh smell of sheets being hung out to dry and the feeling of having those dry sheets for the first time on your bed and how when sheets go through the dryer you don't get that same feeling or smell.

What kinds of smells and sensations are the children of today remembering? The video game controls? The sound of media constantly bombarding our ears?

Of course, another informal session I had yesterday, it was a variety of ages of children, and we're sitting on the grass (fake, mind you) - drumming away, and you could hear the sounds of other children playing basketball, or playing catch with their visiting parents, and lots and lots of running around. So I guess they are still getting that part, too, most children.

And I'm totally going off in different directions now....

ah well, it's a blog, I'm allowed to ramble.