Tonight as I drove home from bookgroup, I opened the sunroof and the front windows and let the still-warm air wash over me. Along with that warm evening air were many beautiful and memory-laden aromas that made the drive home a trip through Memory Lane.

The first aroma I was aware of was the woody smell of freshly spread barkdust. It recalled many a Memorial Day of years past when we spent the day knee-deep in red barkdust spreading it around the houses we rented and maintained. These days we use black barkdust which has a stronger, less woody odor.

The next smell that hit my nose was the heavy, sweet, cloying aroma of the honey locust tree. There were 3 honey locust trees in our backyard at our last house in Lake Oswego. I remember driving into our driveway on the day we moved in (July 1, 1990) and being hit with the smell of those trees. I remembered the feeling I had of moving to a new state and feeling like we had so much ahead of us--new jobs, a new home, new friends, a new life as non-college students. That smell has always brought back that feeling of newness and adventure. I've always liked the smell of the tree but Ed hates it. That was the only thing about those trees that I liked, however. I generally referred to the honey locusts as the Evil Trees from Hell because they were so messy and annoying.

As I continued down the road, I was hit by the dank, almost cinnamony smell of cottonwood trees at the river bank. The air was markedly colder at this area due to the humidity. The smell reminded me of our home in Provo where we lived during our first 3 years of marriage (and last 3 years of college/graduate school). We lived near a river and there were giant cottonwoods along the river bank that let large puffs of fluffy cotton fly through the air on hot summer days. The evening air was always cooler and there were always more bugs to hit our windshield as we drove along the riverbank.

Further down the highway, I smelled a stronger odor--it was the slightly acrid, tangy smell of decaying grass and plants in the wetlands a few miles from my home mixed with the faintest smell of skunk. Most nights (9 out of 10), a drive through this approach to our town will greet you with an intense skunk smell but tonight it was just very faint and not altogether unpleasant. The smell reminded me of the marshy banks of the lake I used to visit when I was in college. I have always had a connection to and a need for water--big water. When I had to get away from annoying roommates, I'd drive my car to this lake and sit at the water's edge watching carp jump and listening to the tinny AM radio in my 1971 Toyota Corona, my best friend in college. When I wanted to study outdoors, I'd go to my special place on the lake or to a picnic area along the river in the canyon. These days, I'm drawn to ponds and to the beach. I take retreats to the beach as often as possible and walk along the edge of the surf smelling and tasting the salty air, listening to the crashing waves and absorbing energy from the massive body of water before me.

At my home, near the front door, I smelled the heavenly and heady aroma of the star jasmine plant in my planting bed. It is most fragrant at night and the aroma was hanging heavy in the warm air. I stopped and inhaled deeply. The smell again reminded me of our last house--our first house after college where everything was before us and a sense of hope and anticipation flowed through my veins. I love feeling those feelings again because sometimes I lose that sense of hope and anticipation. I forget that I still have so much ahead of me, good and bad. It's easy tho start feeling like all the good, exciting stuff is behind you but there is much more living to be done.

So tonight I inhaled the past and let it suffuse me with those warm, encouraging feelings that surrounded the early days of my marriage--the feeling of newness and excitement and freshness. I'll try to hang on to that feeling as I go about the mundane aspects of my days and evenings. I remember when even those mundane things--folding clothes, fixing dinner, vacuuming--were new and interesting and labors of love. Perhaps I can feel that way again.

--L