Cast Away

When some of our senses are impaired, it is surprising how quickly others kick in. There was so much fog this morning when Ozzie and I set off on our walk, that the world was muffled in a thick, grey cloud. Only the distinctive, metallic call of the redwing blackbird cut through the silence. The skeletal trees were mere ghostly outlines.

Scent under these circumstances moves to the foreground. Particular scents can inevitably transport me to a certain time and place. A sniff of newly mown grass takes me back to when I was six and my father let me ride in his wheelbarrow, which he used when he was mowing the lawn and raking up the grass. Here in California, as people convert to more drought tolerant plantings, the smell of new mown grass is not as common as it once was.

Diesel fumes, on the other hand, seem to be more common. Mowers, blowers and riding lawn mowers are all fueled by diesel, and make a lot more noise than the push mowers, hand held trimmers and rakes and brooms of my youth. The smell of a diesel truck takes me back to the streets of London and Edinburgh in the 70's,.

I really miss the smell of brewing beer which permeated the Edinburgh air in those days. As I miss the smell of coffee which wafted across the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge from the Hills Brothers plant beneath the anchorage. The smell of the sea puts me on Balboa Island, where we lived when I was three, and a sniff of pine boughs warmed by the sun puts me in the Sierra on my first (and many subsequent) backpacking trips in the 80's and 90's.

The visual delights in the Cast Away yarn shop--hanks of wool in a boat with a lacy hand knit sail, more cubbies of wool on the original brick wall, Knitted examples of baby clothes, hats scarves and sweaters--brightened up the dull morning when I went in for the necessary needles to complete a project I have been working on for months. In fact, the shop has moved across the street and also carries fabric, books and other craft supplies since I was first there. With a coffee from the Flying Goat shop across Old Railroad Square ,I could spend hours in there.