Earth Smells
(Earth. Smell comes to me first. Each landscape has its own signature scent. I have a passion for the earth, her diversity, her temperament. That's why I'm a hunter and an eco-freak. I can get out in it and smell, listen, feel, taste, see, sense. Following are some of the places I found most memorable.)
Smell. A week spent with family in the enchanted Hoh National Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Thick, green, mossy, musty, moist, magical. The smell of healthy growth and decay. The perfume of rich loam, the fresh scent of pine, the green of shrubs and the streams were sharp and clear.
Smell. A day spent in Monument National Park in Utah baked by temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The scorched smell of cooking sandstone, the aroma of sage and manzanita thick as a wet wool blanket, the slight tang of fish and algae from the river.
Smell. A weekend at the Dunes National Park on the Oregon coast. The brine in the morning and evening mist. The saltiness of crustacean shells in the sand, the sickly sweetness of decay of beached seaweed and its hapless passengers, the straw-lie scent of the seagrass.
Smell. A week in the California Sierra Nevadas. The sweet almost-taste of the tall grass, the scent of flowers thick as incense, the oaks pungent and nutlike and the concrete-like aroma of the rocks baking in the summer heat. The streams were cool and sweet to the nose, slightly of fish and a touch of mud-musty.
Smell. At home in the backyard in early summertime. Fresh-mown fields permeate the air. Wild flowers growing rampant toss their perfumes in the air carelessly, the gin of the juniper, the fur of my dogs, a light waft of good fresh cow and horse manure, the green of grass, the buggy scent of a million midges.
Smell. A convent in central England in the Spring. The heady, almost cloying scent of hundreds of ancient tea roses, of pines as a subtle compliment, a rich muskiness from the healthy, black soil.
Smell. A Fall day in a friend's backyard on Okinawa, Japan. The slight cloying undercurrent of open sewer ditches, the mouth-watering aroma of neighbors cooking unfamiliar foodss, the humid terrarium scent of the jungle behind the fence, the sharp bite of salt in the air from the surrounding oceans.
Smell. Sensual, rich, diverse scents to savor. I have modestly traveled the world and I cannot begin to enumerate the pleasures of this earth. I pray I never develop sinus problems!!!
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Copyright 1998-2008 Colleen D. Bergeron.
Last revised: November 13 2008