I don’t know about you, or about my boys, but when I see this photo, I smell oysters. I smell crispy dried algae and chum and it’s salty-sticky. And that’s just the bottom layer.
Smell is a funny thing. It’s part of our limbic system, creating powerful responses to our environment based on memory.
This country, dry, grassy West Marin, was where I spent most of my time when Ford was in my belly. I think if I could conjure the smell of heaven, this would be it. I was a happy pregnant person. I hung out with my horse out here and that was pretty much all I needed at the time.
Take another whiff: on top of that I smell dry grasses, the sting of nettle and thistle and blackberry thorn, whispering red fescue,
coyote brush, wild rye, California sea lavender, prickly thistle. All warm on my nose, hot summer breath floating inland on cool Pacific breezes.
The kids don’t register it yet, but it’s on the radar. When they’re older, these smells will remind them of idle time. Just like me.
My husband, the busy Silicon Valley dude, who now misses gritty ranch days, can air out his boots along with his mind. (Thank goodness for that layer of sweet summer grass smells!)
The bottom layer is more complex. It rings of dead shrimp and clam burps and worm scat, which, if I dare say it, are all high notes in the perfume that is our dog Seti’s breath. I hear this is fairly common among 13 year-old dogs, this low-tide senior doggie breath. This is the layer that Chas prefers to play in.
Because of this, he will have his own tent next time. I love you baby!
If you take all of these scents I’ve mentioned and add dewpoint and Spaghettios, you get Nirvana for this sleepy boy.
He is about to crash in T minus thirty.
After s’mores, of course.
And after the hot marshmellow goodness has wafted one complete loop around the tent, we burn a few driftwood sticks and rest while the smell of cattle manure rolls directly into camp. This really makes Damon and me homesick. We’re both really weird that way. Manure is an ag thing, much different than, say, seal poop. That’s some nastiness.
And that’s Tomales Bay in the summertime, folks.
Take a minute to wonder what summertime smells have left an impression on your kids this season.
and follow the adventure:
Hey Steph,
This is a really insightful post. The photos are spectacular and I love the idea of smell layers. I should think about this over the weekend on our cabin campout. Late August is such a rich time for smells, dry fir cones, oat grass, lichen dust to name a few.
I truly love this picture of Chas in the blue cap…ode to ear. His fabulous ears are so upstaged by his fabulous hair. Yes I have a wee crush.
beautiful words and pictures. as always.
I believe this summer will be remembered with the scent of chlorine and suntan lotion. We’ve played hookey at the pool most days. the smell of campfire, marshmellows and saltwater will bring memories of first stars in the night and a mad dash for home when 100’s of ghost crabs invaded the beach.
Steph, smells in the outdoors are really important to an outdoorsman. When I am in the field my sense of smell is always searching for familiar and unfamiliar smells, ofentimes those smells are oh so faint, but nevertheless can conjure up rafts of memories, set off an alert signal, whatever. As I hike throught a place I can smell the snakes, the ‘coons, the trumpet flower vine, the camphor tree. Just wish I had the olfactory apparatus of a Labrador, like Coco. It is amazing what they can find from yards away.
Nice post.
Alis, this photo set conjures up dry lichen dust and splintering redwood cones for me (taken back at the cabin 2 years ago): http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssicore/sets/72157602128255041/
Mary, that sounds like a Gulf Coast memory to me! I haven’t seen ghost crabs in ages (well, not since we moved to the west coast).
Dad, I think you’re the only person I know to have such an alert olfactory system; it would make Coco proud
Mine, though it works, is worn out from living with the boys (who don’t regulate emissions).
steph~
why, y’all were in my county!
These are beautiful words and photos~ it seems as though West Marin worked it’s relaxing magic on each of you. And next time you’re in town, we should get our boys together!
seriously could the tour of scents be any more wonderful - I DON’T THINK SO! And the smell of cattle manure is actually one of my favorite smells. It reminds me of summer’s spent on my grandfather’s farm! Now I’m curious about my kids smell associations. hiking in colorado once it smelled like honey and cinammon, dry mountain smells.
Tara–how about Slide Ranch? We’ve never been there…
Jackie–I’ve hiked in Colorado many times before, but though it’s been a while, imagining lichen, honey and cinnamon seem to really stir up old memories! I’d have never thought of the latter but it fits so well!
[...] much time paddling up and down the sloughs, bays and byways of the Bay Area. On a recent campout to Tomales Bay we overheard, just as we were laying down to sleep in our tents, an armada of chatty sea kayakers [...]
This is exactly what I like to do with my boys, associate places and experiences with smells. I love the phrase you coined, “Scent stamps.”
Lately, I have been feeling that society celebrates young girls from what they wear (fashions!) to the facility with which they accomplish their fine motor skills in kindergarten. And boys are overlooked.
It’s nice to find a place where boys (and girls, too) are celebrated and I love the back-to-basics focus of this blog. Thank you!
That’s a very valid point, about the gender differences. I think I’ve seen it most among parent blogs that I read, many of whom raise girls, and many of whom keep craft-related focus on their material. It is indulging for a parent to write about attributes and interests that their children seem to share with them, and perhaps less enjoyable to write about their child’s interests when they are so different from their own. If I could share a day with my children sewing and then writing about our fine-motor mastery, I’d probably do it!
I conceived this blog one day actually as a realization that I simply couldn’t indulge my children with any art or craft pursuits (at least not until they were interested). They are simply too wild!
There was a book that I’d picked up, this book that we focus on, that reminded me immediately that it was time to embrace those wild streaks that make my children, in all of the fiber of their being, boys. Oddly enough, even the book itself sometimes sounds too genteel!
Needless to say, I know a few tomboys (I was once one myself), so fortunately, there are lovely shades of grey in this world. But yes. Boys! Even if they love the color pink and play with dolls, they’re so wonderfully different, fundamentally.
Thanks for the note