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Hello Mark.
I should be working, but your driving essay has been tugging at my mind and I need to write to you. I've been reading your page, lurking about it, for several months. I've enjoyed it thoroughly, and find myself laughing out loud or simply nodding my head in agreement. Or sometimes I just think you have too much time on your hands, but even that is an accomplishment in my book (this is coming from someone who doesn't have nearly *enough* time on her hands). So yesterday when I read the driving entry from July 21, I knew I had to let you know that you were not alone. I drive a Jeep Wrangler, and the hardtop has been sitting forlornly under some fir trees since the beginning of June, while I enjoy the wind whipping over and behind me as I commute the 44-mile round trip to my workplace and back. My commute is a delightful one, by the way. I travel down a rural two- lane highway, from Amity to Monmouth, Oregon. This is in the heart of the famed Willamette Valley farmland, and it is indeed as beautiful as the first pioneers believed it to be. Yesterday evening, I was going home late, at about 10:30 p.m. Some farmers were still out working, the headlights of their tractors creating an eerie glow in the dust of the field. The overpowering scent here was one of freshly cut straw and hay, filling the air and squeezing out the oxygen so I almost felt as if I couldn't breathe. But as I inhaled, the living, moving air filled my lungs and I believed for a moment that I could become a part of this earth -- almost joined with it. Just last Sunday, I was driving south of here, through Corvallis, and there I was flushed with the scent of mint - the fields were being harvested and trucks were traveling the highways filled to the brim with the spicy greenery, which overcame the drugging smell of their diesel exhaust. This sweet, refreshing aroma of chewing gum and peppermint ice cream brought a smile to my face. The kisses that shoved themselves in your face on Madison Avenue, they were different from the kisses of mint, even the kisses of hay and straw. I spent a few days in San Francisco in June, wandering the streets - especially along the wharf -- and so perhaps I can imagine what you were feeling. One day in particular was hot, so hot that you felt as if you were being pressed into a sauna without the pleasure knowing you could escape to a cool shower. Along the wharf, you are assaulted by the smells of dead and dying fish, oils and grease, perfumes and flowers, the sea and the sea lions. The heat only accelerated the combination of scents -- the air was so thick that I could almost feel the smells slipping down the back of my throat. And soon, very soon, those smells were escaping out again through the pores on my face, as little beads of sweat appeared, then slipped down to tickle my neck. And although that may sound uncomfortable, it wasn't somehow. Because instantly I was a part of the city. I was inhaling it, taking it inside of me, and adding myself to it as it escaped from me. Being aware of the city became more than just seeing it, or listening to it, or tasting it. I could smell it, take it, become it. Thank you for letting me know that I'm not the only one who is aware of the scent of life, and that it is not something to wrinkle your nose over. It is something to be experienced, and shared. LuJean *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
LuJean R. Smith, News & Info Specialist
"Life, we learn too late, is in the living, *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* |