the smell of the season

Spring thaw has finally come to the wintry North that is Grand Rapids, Michigan. The sounds of chirping birds fill the air, the potholes in the roads are widening at exponential rates, and the smell of spring fills the air.

The smell is a combination of freshness and dirt -- of awakening trees on the one hand; of mud and six months of dog crap thawing out all at once on the other. Disgusting as the parts might be, the whole enlivens my soul.