March 18, 1853
Today I first smelled the earth.
I have the good fortune to live just up the hill from a floodplain of the Farmington River. Even though it's valuable real estate, due to the threat of flooding (thirteen people died here in the flood of '55) it's now town-owned land leased each year to farmers (including individuals who each get to cultivate a small plot).
When I'm driving home late in the day during the summer, I like to turn off the AC and roll down the windows -- to smell the dirt, to smell the corn. Actually, it turns out that that beautiful dirt, growing smell comes from bacterial spores. Well, whatever. It smells good. Better than good. In some way it's deeply comforting and sustaining.
Thoreau and I live in New England, where we have winter. If you don't have winter where you live -- it's cold, and it's dark, and it lasts too long. But the good side of winter is Spring. There's one day when you first go outside in the morning -- to get your paper, or start your car to drive to work -- when you take a deep lungful of the morning, and there it is. "Spring is coming." It's not even here yet, but for the first time, you know it's coming. It's an olfactory annunciation.
I have the good fortune to live just up the hill from a floodplain of the Farmington River. Even though it's valuable real estate, due to the threat of flooding (thirteen people died here in the flood of '55) it's now town-owned land leased each year to farmers (including individuals who each get to cultivate a small plot).
When I'm driving home late in the day during the summer, I like to turn off the AC and roll down the windows -- to smell the dirt, to smell the corn. Actually, it turns out that that beautiful dirt, growing smell comes from bacterial spores. Well, whatever. It smells good. Better than good. In some way it's deeply comforting and sustaining.
Thoreau and I live in New England, where we have winter. If you don't have winter where you live -- it's cold, and it's dark, and it lasts too long. But the good side of winter is Spring. There's one day when you first go outside in the morning -- to get your paper, or start your car to drive to work -- when you take a deep lungful of the morning, and there it is. "Spring is coming." It's not even here yet, but for the first time, you know it's coming. It's an olfactory annunciation.
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