You know it's summer when...

Seattlites joke that you know it's summer here when the rain turns warm.  Seriously tho, I have a different measure.  I deem us to have completed our annual transit thru Woebegone and to have entered into Summer when we can leave all Eolian's ports and hatches open all night for the first time.

Last nite was that nite, and it's early this year!

We're in SUMMER!

You know it's summer when...

Olfactory, meet Limbic

Scientists who study these things tell us that the olfactory lobe of our brains - where the sense of smell derives - is closely connected to our limbic systems - the seat of emotions.  I have no doubt of this, nor should you.  All it would take is one whiff of your high-school sweetheart's chosen perfume, and all the uncertainty, self consciousness and confusion of those times would return to you in a rush.  And women are very much aware of this.  (Ladies: if you would render him helpless, find out what perfume his high school sweetheart wore and use it yourself - he'll never know what hit him).

Of course, I can have no way of knowing if this would work with the gender roles reversed.  But if it did, what would the guys do - try to obtain a pair of sweaty gym socks from her high school sweetheart?  (I think you see why I am not much of a success at matchmaking.)

I was struck by the close connection between the olfactory and limbic systems again tonight, while riding my bicycle home from the University.  As I have written before, just as I came to the Locks, the smell of seawater (yes, it really does have a distinct smell)  filled my nose.  And my emotions rose.  I stopped pedaling like a crazy man in some kind of race and slowed down.  I was overcome with a kind of calm, relaxed  joy.  The emotion that filled me (and it *did* fill me) was one of wonderful homecoming, like you got in college when you returned home for Christmas break. 

Do you feel it too when you go to the sea?  And where does this come from?  Is it a harkening back to our early origins?  Is it the emotional equivalent of the fact that the composition of our blood is almost exactly that of seawater?  I don't think we can know, since emotion is beyond reason.  But I do know that, living on the water as I do, I get to experience this every single night.  It never grows old - it's been happening to me now for 11 years, since we moved Eolian out to Shilshole.  And it is wonderful.  Absolutely and indescribably wonderful.

So guys, maybe you could take advantage of this.  Instead of the old gym socks, you might want to go with a judicious application of seaweed, rubbing a little behind each ear.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Olfactory, meet Limbic

Goodbye

Sunset on the eve of the Summer Solstice - 9:10 PM here in Seattle at the Western end of the timezone and up near the Canadian border.  From here on the days get shorter.

Sadness.

(Yes, that is a wine glass.  Also sadly, it is an empty wine glass.)

Goodbye

A beautiful day in the neighborhood!

I'm pretty sure that it doesn't show well in this photo, but this morning is a summer morning in Seattle.  You know the kind - where the air is still and humid, and full of the wonderful smells of growing things.  And the icing:  here on the water, you can smell the sea too.  It is warm and cool at the same time.  Just breathing the air fills you with promise for the coming day - it's like breathing in a kind of sparkling elven elixir.  

It is the first such morning this year.

I have all the hatches and ports open, seagull cries echoing thru the marina are filtering in, and the dull grey winter air is being wafted out and replaced with bright yellow summer air.  And I am overflowing with what Alan Greenspan once termed "irrational exuberance".

Talk about being creatures of our environment!  One beautiful morning has reduced me to a gibbering fool.

And I love it!

A beautiful day in the neighborhood!