It has been a hot summer and we don’t have air conditioning, so we open our windows as wide as possible at night to catch a cool breeze if we can. The first sound I hear early in the morning is the sh-sh-sh of the sprinklers coming to life in the garden outside the bedroom window. It is a soft, gentle sound and it immediately takes me back to my childhood, when, on summer mornings, my Dad would turn on the sprinklers as he left for work and my siblings and I were still sleeping. Nowadays, they turn on by themselves by way of a timer set the night before. 

Sounds, like music, or bird calls or trains in the night, it seems, can trigger memory in the same ways that the smell of my mother’s cologne, or bacon frying will instantly transport me into the past, and along with the memory, a mental picture of time and place. Before my eyes have opened the sound of the sprinklers brings with it the memory of deep, long morning shadows across the grass and dappled sunlight hitting the drops of water like a handful of sparkling crystal beads flung into the air. The blades of grass, the petals of the flowers, their leaves, are shimmery and wet and shining in the morning sun. Add in the smells of fresh grass and blooming plants, the feel of wet lawn under bare feet, and it is a complete package for the senses. But mostly it is the music of the sprinkler that paints the picture.

Song  of a Summer Morning

14″ x 20″

recycled shirt fabrics, fused and machine stitched