Flicker of Simplicity

Most of my waking hours these days are filled with books. Lots of books, tomes packed with legal cases and bits of odd hair-splitting analysis. I've always spent a lot of time around books... back as an undergrad, I found that I was one of the few people who ever actually did the reading for all of my classes. Granted, I didn't know any better at the time.

It seems I've spent enough of my time engaged in the cerebral such that there are all sorts of little things I've forgotten along the way. They're small, maybe even akin to a child's simple joys... but it both delights and disturbs me sometimes at how new all of it can seem to me at times... I musn't forget to be human while I'm at my studies.

I ran across a field of grass back to my room tonight, just after the sun went down. I cut through the lawn because I was running downhill, in a hurry, the books on my shelf beckoning menacingly. The sweet smell of grass washed over me, as though it were for the first time, and for a good ten seconds or so, it was all I could think about. Light and sweet, thin and pure, a smell almost as good as the bouquet of flowers I keep in my room, but not as pungent. It didn't smell like fresh-mown grass, either... not sickly sweet or overpowering... this smelled healthy, cool, and alive. I could almost drink it, and no, it didn't 'taste' like wheatgrass...

Maybe it's because I've been eating lousy food for about a month and a half now, but if I could somehow distill the scent of that field into something one could drink, I swear it could be like Olympian nectar.