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Snapshot of our life here: the scent of rain
Posted on: Monday, August 29, 2011
This morning I was on maid-service duty while Ken did breakfast. This always involves a variety of other tasks in addition to regular maid service, like caring for the koi, light landscaping, pool maintenance, hauling trash and recyclables, laundry, harvesting fruit, working in the garden, etc. It was a sunny, bright morning and I noted as I was out and about that everything seemed extra green and fresh. After a few months of dry weather we’ve had a week of evening showers and the land is turning green and lush again. The lava rock looks extra black, the grass extra green, the ocean and sky a more vibrant blue.
It poured last night and this morning once the clouds had cleared and the bright sun emerged, the land seemed to breath and sigh. The baby coffee plants next door to us seemed taller, our trees—our swaying cocoa palms and baby citrus and plumeria and palms—all seemed extra green and lush. The grass shot up and the honeysuckle sent new creeping tendrils down the hill. Our herbs are spreading, our fruit trees shooting up, our greens pushing out huge new leaves.
But it was the scent on the air that forced me to actually stop what I was doing and stand still. I was in the driveway, which is lined with beautiful colorful plants: spider lilies and hibiscus and croton and Hawaiian ti, to name a few. The sun was shining down hard and the sky was heavenly blue punctuated with fluffy white clouds. The birds and butterflies and bees were tending to business all around me. The air here is humid but not overwhelmingly so, warm but not hot. It feels like a gentle caress, and smells of rain-washed flowers.
I stood there and paused and breathed deeply, detecting the scents of damp earth and honeysuckle and citrus flowers and gardenia and plumeria and wet grass and starfruit riding the sea wind. I breathed and breathed until admittedly, I got a little light headed. But I couldn’t get enough. This is the perfume of our days here, the scent of the island. I feel, and our guests concur, that this special scent is part of what makes you feel so relaxed and loved and peaceful on the Big Island. It’s like the island’s giving you a big hug.
Erin
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