lest two Fridays go by without a five-sense post...

In the nick of time, here goes. My life recently has been all rich and full, super-saturated with joys and beauties and questions and sorrows, damp with endless rain, frantic with new growth. Have you seen the trees? They're so alive with themselves and their new green it almost hurts to look at them. In addition to pausing each day to look up at these trees, I have been...

seeing: undergraduates in the throes of finals, peering into screens, asleep over books, holding end-chewed pens and emptying teal paper cup of coffee after cup of coffee

hearing: a fellow walk by with another fellow, naming all the flowers in the street landscaping: "See, this is a tulip, and that's a daffodil..." Also, the sea of tapping in a silent study space on campus as dozens and dozens of fingers finished final papers (and updated facebook statuses)

smelling: a car full of catered restaurant food this afternoon, all spiced and magical, on the way to an event; students walking past my chair with coffee cups; leaves unfurling (can you smell this in the air? I swear I can)

tasting: daily chocolate from Easter gifts; chimney cakes; feta cheese

feeling: tonight, at our end-of-the-year English grad student party, a small dog kept standing on its hind legs and resting its front paws on ... the back of my dress. And I kept thinking someone was getting fresh. Ha!