Smell the bliss of summer

~ Live & Learn

Like clean sheets
On a breezy warm day
On a line
And walking through them
To feel the comfort on your skin
And smell the bliss of summer
As a child
Again

— Pascal Raymond Dorland @ paradoxdesign

Notes: Prose via Your Eyes Blaze Out. Photo: learnedtofly

40 thoughts on “Smell the bliss of summer”

  1. oh yes, PLEASE. I find myself often telling HH and whoever wants (? really ?) to listen of How Summers Were Wonderful when I was a kid – I even tell my mother on the phone of the summer times we spent at her parents house, lying in the grass, higher than us, looking up to the sky with the running clouds, bees and insects vrooooming around us, ants taking our young, sweet arms as race tracks – and there was always a breeze to cool us. If we needed a drink, we picked up an apple from the grounds (never the ‘good ones’ in the branches), or we picked a few berries from grandma’s gooseberries (eek, too sour!) or red currants (not much sweeter…). This poem and photo make it all appear once more in front of my inner eye and childlike soul.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    2. “These early memories I have of being alone and playing, and whispering to the two massive trees in the front yard of my childhood home, watching and listening as they rustled in the wind, and feeling I had done something to effect that movement.”

      Kate Zambreno, Drifts: A Novel (Penguin, May 19, 2020)

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

          1. DK, if this is the first thing that comes to your mind looking at this, I’m concerned.

            Love post, love photo, and NOTHING like sleeping on sheets that sat and baked in the sun all day.

            Liked by 1 person

  6. It took me too to my memories… How amazing our summer days once upon a time… Nothing could be expressed more than this, loved so much. Thank you dear David, Love, nia

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. my mother, my grandmother, my sister (still)
    a ritual —

    the reaching up
    fasten the white sheets to the line with wooden clothes pins.

    we dared
    we were bold little girls in scraggly hair

    ran straight through,entangled ourselves, maybe spun into mummies

    The smell, the smell, the smell….
    we wrapped ourselves in their duties
    breathing it all in.

    Percale.
    __

    I have transitioned to the dryer.
    Not my sister. She holds firm to the wind.
    To the winds of time.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Yesterday, Under another day of breezy blistering heat, (97) the kind of dry heat that hits you when you walk out the door glance at the tinder dry, timbered hill and pray that Wildfire Doesn’t Visit…he hung the cotton sheets, a soft green fitted and luscious brown top sheet, a mix of pillow cases (so eclectic) along with my nightgown, on the main clothes line. The day before two loads of rugs along with drying towels for wiping up floors after mopping,along with a pair of white socks hung on the main line and the Auxiliary Overflow Line. When needed we hang small items off the butterfly bush broken branches or on hangers under the latticed grape arbor. Sometimes large heavy comforters air along the fence line…I sat on the bed last night, slipped my soft cotton knit nightgown over my head I was taken aback by the ozone infused smell of sunshine, I drew in…, then I pulled a piece of nightgown up over my nose for just one more amazing inhale…I laid my head on the crisp pillow-cased flat pillow and slid between the air dried sheets of summer joy! I always make a point of setting aside sun dried scratchy towels for a treat…pulling out in the middle of a cold, damp foggy, sunless winter…the texture, the smell and the hope of a Spring, Summer and Fall of Light, Warmth and Sun…///Yes I have rich memories of childhood playing in the midst of sheets flapping on the clothesline…so unique you would smile…”Each Breath Is A Gift” Kindly, Christie

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. Thank You 🙂 I need a new computer…four hours to get it running for up to 8 minutes of computer time, most of the time…sometimes I don’t even bother unless I have to pay a bill. We’ve had to replace an air conditioner, a water heater (flooded part of the garage) and the refrigerator -He went to the store daily to buy block ice for over two weeks until the refrigerator was available,(lost a lot of food) turns out they sent the one with the incorrect door swing so we wait and we wait for the replacement and they only had two refrigerators that fit are small area and the one the had with quickest availability of course was an expensive Kitchenaid, the price unreal and it is only 18 cubic ft!…thankful for a credit card & a dream bottom freezer! now I can get my own food out of the fridge! Couldn’t do that with out pain with the old freezer on top one & the items had to be put on the top shelf left side if it was somewhere else I couldn’t reach it…so someone else would have to get out what I needed, nice to have a bit of independence! back -obliviously a computer not a priority, financially. It has been an adventure…doctor appointments and lab visit(s) on top of it all, the lab sent me home Friday since no one could get a vein ///My sister ordered new appliance for her kitchen remodel on May 2nd she just got her order two week ago…a lot of folks are waiting more than a month to get appliances. Believe me so thankful for a family, home, water, electricity, the ability to walk, so very thankful for everything and I hope my prayers for a cure for the C-19 virus and the end of the world wide civil unrest are answered quickly. There is a forward with much Joy to experience… PS: I also need to send Sawson a Long Overdo Email…

    Like

    Reply

  14. My husband says he would have destroyed the computer many months ago, he can’t understand my patience…I think of some household maintenance $$ that must be dealt with before the weather changes, so computer must wait, Joyfully, shocked that it is working for a little while today!…my sisters have resorted to texting me, I do not like to text with my old school pay as you go cell phone…I can’t even say how many times I watched, well at least twice – Bridget Jones Diary, Clueless, Legally Blonde and Never Been Kissed ( 😉 )Ha I know a grown women who watches old time teen movies) and the ever so wholesome Hallmark Movies this summer (oh I know & every HGTV etc shows, I’ve read many design mags…/// he took me for a short-drive on Saturday-so gorgeous, so dry (had hoped to spot some Elk, Cougar, etc)…I’ve been wanting to go to a winery maybe 8 minutes drive time from the house, so much closer as the crow flies…I don’t drink (never had any interest) though I would love to see the grounds…they are only open on Sunday afternoons…(due to the virus restrictions) last year they hosted outside movies, picnic style on Saturday evenings…we’ve enjoyed walking along the creek, bbq, the beauty and bounty of the garden…We had the most darling little five year old visitor to the garden Sunday afternoon…he liked the garden tour, picking blackberries to take home and sitting while eating a berry pop-cycle…his dad and the rest of the adults drank Glacier Cherry zero Gate-raid…it was a very short notice visit 🙂 and certainly warmed my heart for the time with the visitors…we enjoy the walks along the creek, stopping to eat a few blackberries, today we sample an old apple tree,lots of simple Joys in the Summertime…Hello to everyone here on DK’s blog.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. Hi David,

    Nice to find my prose here and that it’s valued by your followers! Very nice also that you gave me credit and even put a link in the post directing to my tumblr page!
    I liked reading the comments here and the reactions it envoked by some, makes writing things and posting it worth while.

    Kind regards, Pascal Raymond Dorland

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  17. Hi David, just dropping by to say thanks for posting my prose on your site and finding proper credit to me and even linking to my tumblr page!

    Lovely to read some of the reactions here too 🙂

    Best regards,

    Pascal Raymond Dorland

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply