❄️ My Winter–Summer Scent
Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney. 5 July 2026, a 1-minute read.
Excerpt: There is a scent I recognise instantly — that winter–summer mix of cold air and warm light. It settles around me the way familiarity does, quiet and unmistakable, the kind of presence that feels like home even before I name it.
My Winter–Summer Scent
Today the air smelled like winter–summer — that strange mix of cold air and warm light that always makes me pause. I stepped outside to bathe in its glory, to immerse my senses in the sun, the cold breeze, and the quiet greenery around me. The rosemary was warming in the light, releasing that deep, resinous scent I love. And in my mind, the moment opened into a wide meadow — lavender stretching out in soft colour, rosemary close by, the kind of place where the air feels both sharp and gentle at the same time.
For a second I imagined myself lying in that lavender meadow, drifting off in the soft winter–summer light — until the practical part of me kicked in and reminded me, wait, what about the snakes and spiders? That little pinch of reality pulled me back to where I was, back to the familiar presence of my winter–summer scent.
There was something familiar in the way the cold and warmth met. The way the greenery breathed out its oils. It reminded me of those moments where the world feels still but alive, like standing in winter with a hint of summer brushing past.
As that winter–summer scent wrapped around me — the cold air warmed by light, the rosemary sharp and green, the imagined lavender softening the scene — I thought of an artwork I created months ago. Unspoken Pathways came from a similar afternoon. The eucalyptus trees were moving outside, the same scent drifting through the room, and I felt that quiet internal shift that always begins my In Between Paintings. Reflection first, then the process, then the work. The pastels followed the feeling, tracing that subtle current I couldn’t name but recognised instantly.
Maybe this winter–summer air affects me the way it does because it carries something deeply familiar — the same warmth, the same quiet intensity, the same unmistakable presence of my winter–summer scent. The one I recognise without thinking. The one that settles me. The only scent I ever want wrapped around me.
Standing there today, I felt that familiar shift I recognise in my creative process — the quiet internal movement that often begins my In Between Paintings. It was the same subtle awareness that shaped Unspoken Pathways, returning in the winter–summer air.
Sometimes the smallest things — a scent, a breeze, a shift in light — open a doorway into reflection, connection, and the beginnings of a creative process. Today, my winter–summer scent opened it again.
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