when the world soaks up the winter

This morning, walking the little pug, I smelled spring. That smell of thaw and melt when the world is soaking up the winter.

Oh, I know it's just a passing promise for now.

More cold weather is coming over the weekend, and this smell of spring will disappear into that frozen smell of car exhaust. That is the smell the snow takes on after just a day on the ground. Turning gray, it is an ugly reminder of the price of transportation, just as the soot-covered cathedrals in Europe were a reminder of the price of industrialization.

When the snow turns gray and the air is so cold, all I can smell is exhaust(ion).

But no need to think of that now, on this day when breathing in the air feels life-giving {as I suppose it always should, but when it is -3 out, breathing in feels like a struggle}.

No need to think of the cold to come on a day when you can just start to see the grass emerging from under the snow—just at the edge of the sidewalks. It's matted down, probably experiencing the grass-equivalent of what happens to your hair when you wear a hat for too long, only in this case, the hat is the snow that has been crushing the snow for what must've been years.

It has been years since I breathed in warm air while walking the little pug, hasn't it? That's what my soul seems to remember, but smelling the spring this morning made my soul remember that there are warmer days to come. Soon.