Descriptions

Just a few word paintings that have been hanging around in my head today.  Thought I'd get them out on "paper" while they were still around.  Don't know if I'll ever use them for anything, but I think they're kinda cute.  See if you feel what I mean in each case.  Did I do a good job?
None is related to any of the others, really.

 1.

It was a shock to come out of the dry coolness of the library into the early Autumn afternoon.  The sun was bright, the air scented vaguely like someone's dryer vent who uses fabric softener sheets.  It was as moist and hot as the air from that dryer vent, too.  One of those times when you dread the first few minutes in the car that probably feels more like the inside of an Easy-Bake oven. Weather that makes one very glad to have velour upholstery instead of vinyl.

2.

The night air, so cold and bright and brittle that you feel you could almost shatter it, numbs your nose and fingers and toes so suddenly that it leaves you breathless for a moment.  Yet you stand dumbfounded, staring up at the clear, jeweled sky, suddenly caring nothing for the sharp cold, feasting tired eyes on the sparkling glory of the stars.

3.

And you draw the air into your lungs, set yourself just so, wait for the music to get to the right spot, and then - ah, then - you open your mouth and let the music flow through you.  It comes up from your toes, it rings in your head like a bell, it vibrates out from your very soul.  And it is sweet, so very sweet, to soar along with the music, to fly, for just a moment, to be lost in another world entirely.

4.

A strange sense of detachment, accompanied by abject terror trying to make me shake.  And this is something I've looked FORWARD to for a long time!  Yikes!  I'm going to open my mouth and nothing sensible will come out. Or, I will stand there and stare like an idiot.  So very nervous, but
when the moment comes, a smile so disarming, someone so genuinely glad to see us, all the nerves flee, replaced by giddy happiness.  And I probably did sound like an idiot, but a happy idiot!

5.

For what felt like hours, we stood, waiting.  The wind was blustery, but the weather held.  Suddenly, just when we were fearing we'd have to come back tomorrow, we hear it, a low hum, getting louder, a very welcome vibration that resonates in our very souls.  Then the cry goes up, "There they are!"  and the first of the C-130s we've been waiting for flies over the field, turning to come back in for landing. Our guys and gals are home!  At last!  The ones deployed from our wing have been gone more than 7 months. Not long by some standards, but a long time for military airlift crews to be away from home station.  It seemed to take forever, hearing more and more of those planes we missed the sight of come in and land, and wave after wave of people come in, greeting friends, pointing them to their loved ones if they hadn't seen them yet. And then, there you were.  My knight in smelly flightsuit, my ginger man, my only love.  I never wanted to let you go ever again.

There.  Now, I sit here, in my somewhat noisy office, hearing the refrigerator running on the other side of the wall, my husband puttering with something in the kitchen, the TV left on in the living room, and I hear the clicking of my fingers on this keyboard.  It is a very satisfactory feeling, to have the words spilling out, and my fingers for once keeping pace.  (Most of the time my brain goes far too fast for my hands to keep up.  Piano practice goes this way as well.  I read too far ahead, my hands get confused and tangled up.)  Now, I hear opera coming from the living room. I'm off.....