Petrichor

You know the smell – it’s called petrichor 

source: http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=18073 

The smell of the first rain mingling with the earth

It connects you with the richness of nature, the freshness of soil, it makes you feel good.

It makes you feel strangely connected with something, you don’t know what.

Or no...

It gives you a cold and headache because you’re one of those people for whom changing weather means blocked nose

https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/5937618994/ 

For you, the petrichor is not a sign of anything good

It tells you that things are going to get horrible quite soon

That you will not sleep for the suffering that lies in store

The smell depresses you, it fills you with foreboding

And all that was around a smell.

One smell, two possible feelings

Embedded deep in our memory from a time we don’t even recall

From as far back as we have known

Learned from experience

From a time long past

That's our mind, the nature of it, throwing up past experiences with associated feelings

Which brings up a question, can I change the feeling?

Can I reduce the sense of despondency that I have a bad week coming?

What I learned about Resolutions

The first time I met ‘karma’ was when I threw a pile of washed clothes into my cupboard and they fell back on me. 

Since then, we’ve met on more occasions than I care to recount. 

One day, as I stood in front of my clothes, missing the one and only pant that could match the single available ironed kurta, I decided the time had come. The time was right to become a better me. 

The truth of the matter is, once the immediate crisis passes off, so does the resolve.

Another time we met, 'karma' said I told you so. This was when I lost a piece of jewelry, handed to me by my mother. Distraught, I searched every nook and corner until I remembered that I had, much against my better judgement hidden some things in a most unlikely spot, almost a year ago.

I went back to that spot, there it was. 

Once again, I resolved never to hide it in mysterious places again but... the spot was truly brilliant. My habit of getting almost hallucinatory about tiny things I might lose wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

So clearly, the resolution wasn't going to work. Ever.

The resolve was at odds with my very nature. 

A thrower of things should resolve for perfect aim, a hider of things in mysterious places should resolve to remember their squirrel space.

Resolutions are the should-be's we want to make our lives perfect but