This time of year can be stressful, with birthdays, a new school year, endless vegetables that need to be picked and processed, milking to be done, and cheese to be made. By 8pm each day, when I’m finally getting out to pick vegetables, I’m exhausted and grumpy.

But the corn is flowering, and all I have to do is inhale deeply that unmistakable fragrance to be transported back to my childhood, catching fireflies in my nightgown in the back yard on hot summer nights. Stress and fatigue fade with every breath. Life is good and I am at peace. I could stand there inhaling that memory of childhood summers for hours. In fact, I sometimes sneak out there with my morning coffee, just to stand in the middle of the corn, breathing. It is the smell of hot summer days and humid nights, skinned knees, grasshoppers and cicadas, and wild games of tag among the corn rows. It is the smell of freedom from school, schedules, and other obligations. It is the smell of childhood wonder and possibilities. With every breath, some of that wonder, some of those possibilities become real again.