Scent of Memory

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

I took this same shot mere weeks ago, when the world was white. Now, it's all color, green and rose and lavender.

We've had two evenings straight of scattered rainshowers, unusual here this time of year. The world smells new in a way that nothing else does.

It smells like home.

I mentioned last week that an old friend of Wings's had offered us some hay, 30 solid bales if high-grade alfalfa. We went and picked it up this morning, just the two of us in the old truck. Yes, I lifted and loaded (and unloaded) bales, 65 pounds a pop, despite my injured leg and hand. Work has to get done, and as a man we called brother once famously said, "Our women are tough as hell." We have to be.

But driving onto this man's land . . . . His drive is lined with evergreens, alternating spruce and juniper and piñon, in a size and luxuriance that I haven't seen since childhood summers back home. Pine needles a good eight inches in length on each branch, the sort of length seen on the old soldier pines up by Grayling. The smell of rich fresh loamy earth, and lush green grass and sweet alfalfa already shooting up through the soil.

I was four again, and running through our own fields out to the orchard.

Spring is a fraught time, as much for me personally as for the earth itself. And there's more than a touch of melancholy to the memories.

But they smell sweet.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.