Friday, October 19, 2007

Fall is in the air...

Many years ago, almost 20, I moved from eastern Washington to the Pacific NW.
My first day in Hamsterville, the girl I moved to be near dumped me.
I remember it quite well. With the depression that comes from getting dumped, I walked a lot.
Autumn has always been my favorite season, and it was definitely fall.
I took a long walk, one day, up to a local lake. It had rained the night before and the smells were all new and different.
As I walked the winding trail up to the lake, I smelled wet earth, damp pine needles, cedar, dirt, mold.
A few months later, still smarting from loss of love and direction. I took an advanced first aid-wilderness first aid class where we spent one full day out, under the trees, figuring out how to save multiple victims 3 days from the trail head. I remember the smells that damp fall day I took my final test, and passed.
I came back to help with the class three more times, acting as a victim twice, lying in wet pine needles and cedar boughs.
Today I walked out into the front yard, walking a certain brown long dog and letting Puppette sniff all around, I was noticing new smells.
There are more leaf trees here, so it smells different. The sound of acorns falling on the house, the truck, the shed. They pop under your shoes when you step on them.
Part of what you experience in life is visual, part scent.
I am in new scents and trying to enjoy all of it. But there is the ever present knowledge that this is not Hamsterville, not the surroundings I have known for so many years.
Vive la difference!

Get ready for a little contest.
If you can guess the total miles logged on the minivan, and come closest with out going over, K and I will send you a New York present!
Guess only once.
I will take guesses for one week.

Let the fun and frivolity begin!

C

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