Scent and Memory

When I came back from Australia, I was loath to do my trip laundry.  As I slowly put each garment in the washer, I inhaled deeply the scents that meant Australia to me, knowing that after I pushed the start button, all physical ties to that magical month would be gone, rinsed out with the laundry soap.  All I would have left would be the journals and the photographs....and the memories.  The spicy aromatic smell of eucalyptus, the sharp earthy sneeze of dust, the salty tang (was that from the ocean, or a stray bit of the marmite I had dutifully tasted and rinsed out with beer?):  all were going, going gone.

It's long been known that scents bring back memories more vividly than anything else.  I'm lucky that most of the scents I encounter bring back good memories:  old spice means my first love, cinnamon is firmly attached to the rolls my mom taught me to make, cardamom brings thoughts of julecaga and Christmas.  When I return to the ocean, the first thing I do is roll down the window and breath deeply of the salty breeze.  When I smell the sweet spice of Daphne, in memory I'm walking around SE Portland with Carbon on the lead.

So, today, as I walk with Rudy the Cutie, I breath in California:  sweet lemon blossoms, even sweeter jasmine, and dusty eucalyptus, that graceful invasive tree that is now as evocative of California as it is of its native home, Australia.  No wonder I'm remembering Australia, I think.

Rudy too is following scents, and leaving his own.  I watch his alert old man's face with the short floppy poodle ears held straight out from his head:  he is focused and a little severe.  If he were larger, I might be intimidated, but with his summer haircut and the long waving plume of a tail, it's hard to find him anything but charming.

Last night J taught me the walking routes for morning and evening, and today I am following them faithfully.  But tonight I notice that the leaf-covered trail into the park branches to the left into huge trees, up a hill and around mossy grey boulders.  I wonder where the enticing path goes, but follow the right-hand fork into the park, entering a boring cement walk circling a grassy field with a play structure on the far end.  When we reach the street on the other side, I see the end of the trail I had noticed and start walking up it, but Rudy is having none of this break from routine.  He lags behind me, not recalcitrant, but not willing either. I turn back to the street and he trots gaily ahead of me, reassured.

The park is empty tonight.  24 hours ago, eight teenagers were grouped around a table, flinging something into the air, talking and laughing.  J hazarded a guess:  "a portable ping pong table?  that's clever," but as we approached, we saw it was no such thing.  It was a plain white rectangular table, no net, with brightly colored plastic glasses set precisely in each corner.  We ccouldn't tell what the kids are throwing, nor to what end.  As we drew level, I said, "I have to ask:  what are you doing?"

The nearest boy answered readily enough:  "We throw it and it has to bounce on the table and land on the other side."  Hmmm.  "Oh, I thought you were aiming for the glasses."  "Well, yes, we get extra points for that."  "You're throwing quarters?"  "No, dice," he said, showing me tiny white cubes in his hand.  I asked what the game was called and he didn't have an answer:  apparently it was a game they had created.

We walked on and I picked a eucalyptus leaf from the large trees lining the path, separating park from schoolyard.  I bent it and sniffed, bent it again, sniffed again, a little ritual I repeated until the leaf was a limp folded square and the scent had begun to fade with repetition.  We passed a huge patch of jasmine encircling an even huger tree.  Rudy added his own scent.

I don't know what scents he is remembering as we walk the route tonight, but I suspect that his memory of the route is more about scent than sight. Despite my theory about scents, I know that my path is driven my sight.  I still want to walk that path, wandering in the late afternoon dappled sunlight through the tall trees.

How to Create a Nomadic Life

Late afternoon in
Bucolic Marin County:
I find a cheese sale.

I'm sitting in a lovely hilltop house in Petaluma CA, listing to baroque music on Spotify, watching the gentle coastal hills across the way.  The clouds have not yet burned off, so they sit under a quilt of grey-white, the dark green trees contouring the green and gold fields.  Despite the heavy population of Sonoma County, it feels rural here.  Hell, it is rural.  It only takes 5 minutes to reach those fields and roll up and down and around them in a satisfying flow of pastures, trees, cows, hills and clouds.

Yesterday I took a late afternoon drive south along a secondary road, seeking and finding the Marin French Cheese tasting room.  The Petit Truffle brie was on sale, 10 for $20, so I loaded up my arms with brie and a baguette of sourdough and sat at a picnic table, guarding my late lunch from the tame crows and keeping an uneasy eye on the nearby geese.  The sun warmed the cool breezes, tinted with a hint of salt from the nearby coast.  And I marveled at the fact that, now, this sort of slow satisfaction is mine for the foreseeable future.

The amazing thing, to me, is how inevitable this choice now appears.  I skim my other blog, What the Cat Dragged In, started when I was laid off from PSU in 2011.  It's full of musings about travel and the future.  Once I moved to NM and then went through the debilitating dissolution of my marriage, the tenor of the musings evolved: while most of the blog was fairly whiny therapy,  I was also unconsciously planning the trajectory out of a 40-hour work week. In June 13, 2013, I wrote a blog called "Doing What You Love,"  in which I determined to start the process of divesting myself of possessions and starting a non-linear life.  On October 4, 2013, I wrote "It's my midlife and I'll crisis if I want to."  It was my last day at ABC Library.  I was set to become a live-in caregiver (and what a fabulous, healing 18-months that turned out to be.)  January, 2014, I wrote a blog called "The Vagabond Consultant," another blueprint for decluttering.  (Jump forward to April 28, 2017, "Preparing to be a Nomad," where I am STILL trying, unsuccessfully, to pare down my possessions.  They are now mostly in G's basement storage, with a sizeable and unnecessary amount in the back of my car.  And the pre-2012 possessions are still in L&J's Portland basement.  Sigh.)    But the events that really got me moving at last were a session with L in November, 2015, which percolated until February of this year, when I took a Statistics class (using my head) and had a session with a psychic (exploring my spiritual and heart chakras.)  Between an analysis of my savings and retirement income streams and a delving into my heart, I realized that the time had come.  Or, as my duet partner C said, "If you're thinking about retirement, you'll be retiring."

Well, not quite, but close.

So, what does it take to become a nomad?  My friends L&G were nomads for close to 2 years, and they shared their tips with me.  On their advice, I joined Trusted Housesitters.com and within 2 months was booked up for the next year.  Apparently I still have problems with the unscheduled life. I learned to summarize my plans thusly:  "I'm spending summer in CA, autumn in the UK, a winter month in Japan, and Jan-April in Norway."  Most people zone out half way through that, and the people who want to keep track of me are told to check out my blog.  (That means I have to actually write one.)  So, the first thing you need is a system for finding free or cheap travel options.

At some point I may want to turn pet-sitting into an income stream, but for now the social process is working to keep me grounded and connected.  My profile says I'm a Musical Librarian with Love for Travel and Community.  And that's true:  while I am not grounded or nesting or doing the other domestic things that I love, I do need a way to express those needs.  I need a home, even if it's someone else's.  So, for me the second thing I need is a connection to the places where I'll be living.

Some people would put the next thing first:  money.  Well, yes, of course.  And I probably have what I need, what with working since I was 16, full time since I was 22.  There are savings and retirement and, hopefully, Social Security.  But, nothing is secure, and even though my income streams account for COLA, there are still things that can derail them.  So, what I'm really looking at is a gamble, a gamble that I can exist for the next few years on my savings and start taking retirement later.  I'm also looking at other income sources, online tutoring mainly.  And, we'll see.

Health and healthcare are a real concern, but that is one reason to do this now, while I'm still active and in reasonable shape.  The health issues that have plagued me over the past several years seem to have gone underground since I started planning vagabondage in earnest, which is another sign that this is the path I need to travel.  So, clearly a nomad must also have a heart-deep, physical need that will not let him/her stay in a perfectly good job in a beautiful place, surrounded by wonderful friends, engaged in worthwhile and fulfilling activities.

In addition, here are the practical preparations:  Divest yourself of possessions, get debt free, and remove as many monthly expenses as possible.  Have a mailing address and a person who can forward necessary documents (like tax documents.)  Figure out health insurance and telephone plans. Have a contact person (in my case several persons) to receive daily texts during solo travel times.  Sign up with something like LegalShield to watch over you. Leave a copy of addresses, passwords, IDs, and contacts with someone.  Stockpile necessary medicines.

As must be obvious by now, none of this can happen without support, both emotional and financial.  I am blessed by friends and family who provide both a safety net and a springboard for my dive into this upcoming year.  May they have as much joy and comfort as I anticipate for myself.