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.
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