Senses on a Suburban Spring Evening

What I see:

1. at least a dozen kinds of trees growing both fresh and new, and strong and tall among the over two dozen trees surrounding us
2. a little dog's forest worth of ferns
3. a few plucky birds out almost past their bedtimes
4. lightning bugs
5. lots of lightning bugs
6. around an acre of freshly shorn, fresh, green grass
7. hot pink roses
8. clematis
9. vines and more vines!!!
10. flowersflowersFLOWERS!!!!
11. plants soon-to-flower and those which will not but are beautiful in their own right because of their million shades of green
12. the swooping bats which I always refer to as "my bats"
13. a freshly filled hot tub
14. a riding mower
15. the tranquility of the cemetery behind my house
16. the neighbor's child's child's play-set
17. ...and a few pink, plastic flamingos

What I smell:
see numbers 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 above
and
a grill in some nearby yard cooling down from the busy day
warm concrete

What I hear:
see numbers 3 and 12 above
and
children playing in a yard (catching lightning bugs?)
a nearby screen door--the old-fashioned kind-- opening and closing regularly with a "whoooosh," then a "smack!"
some creatures scurrying in the brush and plants around the house
very light Sunday night traffic on "my" two busy streets

What I feel:
warm concrete beneath my dirty feet and under my ample ass
a mosquito and some gnats lighting repeatedly on my skin

What I know:
my oldest baby boy graduated from high school today
I have the whole summer ahead of me with my boys, my dogs, my friends, and--for a week--the ocean
my boys are safe and having fun with friends tonight
I'm about to eat a tub of mashed potatoes and gravy and a few biscuits with honey for a late supper

What I taste:
joy

I share a nose with a dead woman.

I just re-lit the pilot light on the 60-some year old stove which my great-grandmother installed in her kitchen when she remodeled her then 20-some year old kitchen. The kitchen in the house of which she oversaw every single detail as it was being built. The house I now own and love, warts and all. (The house was not kept sparkly new in the latter years of my great-grandparents lives, mostly because they lived very long lives and 98-year-olds don't always have the wherewithal for plastering, painting and remodeling. Go figure... The good part, for a house geek like me, is that almost my entire house is original.)
I knew the pilot light had gone out because I could smell the gas which should be burning but was not. I smelled it from two rooms away, but I am the only person I know who can smell when our pilot light goes out. And I smell it almost immediately. The tiny amount of gas leaking in a not-airtight house isn't really dangerous, especially when you notice it within a few minutes of the pilot having gone out. Apparently my Nana had this weird unlit-pilot light ESP, too.
My Nana and I have a lot in common in many ways, both physically and personally, and sometimes I weirdly feel like I was destined to take over her beloved household in which I spent home-sick-from-school afternoons as a child. So it didn't surprise me when I was told that Nana always knew when the pilot light went out.

I have an afghan which was Nana and Grandpa's and it hangs in the back of my couch just as it hung over the back of theirs for my childhood. Not a day goes by that I don't look at the afghan as I sit down on my couch and feel a connection to the woman whose home--and nose--I share.