Grandma’s almost always right about the weather

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.”
~ Rita Mae Brown

OK, I’m blushing. About that spreadsheet …

I had been in a year-long relationship with someone a favorite referred to as a one-balled-red-headed-cracker, and said relationship ended rather abruptly. To get over that man, let’s just say that there was a period of time I spent getting under a few others – not that I am proud of that behavior, it just is what it is. A joke started that I need a spreadsheet to keep track of all these guys, so I started one as a total joke. And then I met the guy I was with for the next three-plus years and the information on that joke spreadsheet faded out of significance. So … that’s all that is.

June in Minnesota has a few very distinct smells: freshly mowed lawn, newly blooming white lilacs and the scent immediately post-rainstorm. I’m not saying these scents are exclusive to the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but that’s the area with where I associate them.

The yard outside my grandmother’s house wasn’t huge, but big enough to be home to a large gas tank for winter’s fuel oil and a clothesline held up by two old oak posts. There was also a chestnut tree, maple trees, some Ladyslippers (I’m sure transplanted illegally, shhh), a few other other wildflowers, a modest garden and most memorably a couple oversized lilac bushes.

I remember the lilacs the most because in between the bushes there was a small hollowed out spot, just big enough for me, a blanket and sometimes even a book. I had to lift aside a couple branches to get to the right spot, but once I was immersed in the green leaves I had my own special, tiny world. I could see what was happening in the rest of the yard, but it had to have been nearly impossible to see me from the outside. If the day was bright enough, I would crawl in that little hollow with my book and blanket and read until I fell asleep, got hungry or got called inside.

Summers from my childhood are full of sunshine, slight breezes and lovely scents.

I remember falling asleep in the lilacs one afternoon while I was reading one of the Little House books – didn’t every little girl read those? I nodded off, content in the green leaves, the smell of lilacs and warm sunshine carrying me away. I woke up a short time later as the neighbor started mowing his lawn; as I stretched I also took note of my stomach growling, so put my book aside and went to find Grandma and a snack. When I was sent back outside to fetch my things before the coming storm, I remember thinking that the smell of the fresh cut grass smelled so nice with the brand new lilacs and that Grandma was nuts thinking it was going to rain.

By supper time, the thunder and lightning convinced me that Grandma was right – because Grandma was almost always right about the weather. I sat in the living room after the sky darkened, looking out the picture window from across the room, just watching the lightning light up the sky. It wasn’t a terrible storm, but all the same I was glad to be safe inside and not stuck in the midst of the elements.

Freshly mowed grass, blooming white lilacs and the scent immediately post-rainstorm. My Minnesota childhood.