p .  e .  t .  r.   i .  c . h . o . r

Do you love the smell of the ground after the rain?

I remember one childhood memory that I am so fond of , that is smelling the grass and the ground just after it rained. The air smells so good, so fresh after a drizzle or even a downpour. This  thing is  called -Petrichor.

After the rain,me & my cousins would run after each other and just stand in the street to inhale the grounds or smell the plants. We would pull the leaves still drizzled with raindrops. I love those times. Being carefree and wild. When it rained so hard, we would play in the puddle and make a man made-dikes to let the rainwater flows through it. I would even climbed into the roof just to enjoy the rain. Those were the happy days of childhood.

I didn’t know any scientific explanation about Petrichor back then, all I know is that I love it whenever I smelled it. When you were a child, you are more concerned about enjoying it, rather than learning what is it. But when I become an adult,  I knew that odors of the past triggers and brings back memories . Smells rings bells. It works like a magic like that. I don’t know about you, but this is one of the things I feel nostalgic about.

 “Petrichor,” lingers when rain falls after a prolonged dry spell. Petrichor — the term was coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists studying the smells of wet weather — is derived from a pair of chemical reactions. This is the scientific definition of this lovely word.

Some plants secrete oils during dry periods, and when it rains, these oils are released into the air. The second reaction that creates petrichor occurs when chemicals produced by soil-dwelling bacteria known as actinomycetes are released. These aromatic compounds combine to create the pleasant petrichor scent when rain hits the ground.

I love these out of the spin- moments that I slip into the past while nature is at work. What a journey it might have been to be in the present right now, but still, the fond memories like of happy childhood, dancing in the rain, smelling the flowers, and the magical  Petrichor lingers on.

How about you, Do you have any childhood memory triggered by sniffing a certain smell?

What do you feel when it rains and its gone?