An Elevation Change

After a few months off, I had an awesome massage tonight.  Because the weather was so nice I choose to ride my scooter up to my appointment, and then run to Target and the store immediately after.  To lengthen the ride, I opted go to the stores farther north, rather than the ones closer to our house. 

There's this.....elevation change, a dip down, in the road that goes on for about four city blocks before it comes up again.  The trees are more dense, the houses sparse.  It's my favorite spot to ride through because of the way it smells.  Sure, you can tell you're getting closer because the temperature drops, but then you can tell you're there...when you can smell the woods.

I know that many people are nostalgic for childhood smells, and I'm no different.  Dryer sheets, cut grass, baked goods....they don't do the trick for me, though.  The woods?  Absolutely.

It's the woody, damp smell.  The layers of dirt and moss and leaves.  It's thicker, heavier air to smell.

My Great-Grandparents lived in a little house on the side of a county road with the woods behind them.  I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid and the woods started out pretty scary to me.  My Great-Grandpa Faudree would take me on walks though, down, past the trash burning bin and little house, to show me where the opening to the woods was, how to follow the path.  Way in the back, there was a stream that had mostly dried up, but clearly used to be much more and he'd built a bridge to cross it.  In no time I was out, exploring on my own.  

Grandpa Faudree told me to keep an eye out for ignis fatuus...and even though he explained to me what it was, I will always define it as the word that cost him the spelling bee championship. (He thought it started with an "e" but he was wrong.)   He collected the exoskeletons of cicadas while I was gone and kept them for me, until I visited the next time, hanging on the railing to the front porch.  He taught me how to fire his BB gun at old cans...but made me first promise to find all of the BBs after we were done, so we could reuse them.  (I only bought that one once.) 

Summer hours stretched out for me there.  The heat fell away to the damp, cool air....and the smell of the woods was ubiquitous.  

Even though those woods are 2+ hours away, whenever I drive through that stretch and can smell the woods, I can feel the slope of the back yard towards the woods under my feet, hear him whistle as clear as a bell, and talk to the birds like old friends.  Summers sure don't stretch on like they used to...but that smell and the incredible ways my Grandpa showed me his love has never left me.