Pictures.
When I was little (I tell myself) we lived in California. I grew up in Oregon.
It’s not a story. I have no narrative. That hall was not walked down.
A cow did not wake me up, middle of the night, improbably trapped in the kitchen, stuck behind the cast iron stove.
That happened to my roommate.
Lying on my back in the back seat of a Renault. Early nineteen sixties. Watching cigarette smoke curl out of the window, barely cracked. My mother picks me up. I adore
I adore that smell. I follow it. Fifty years later.
Fifty years later.
I do not think in pictures. That is a myth.
I am not certain I think at all. But I have pictures. Standing on the step. Another different house. Watching the funeral on a small television. Black and white. Nineteen sixty-three. Poison oak burning in the distance. Eucalyptus. Dry grass and dust.
And smells. I have smells.
Sinus surgery coming up; the doctor tells me “and you may not have as much sense of smell; the surgery involves removing tissue in an area with a lot of sensory receptors” yes he really said that
and I wonder
How do they treat eye surgery? “and you may not have as much sense of vision”
I am pretty sure that’s how brain surgery works.
I have an inappropriate sense of dread.
Is there a surgery for that
?
and you may not have as much anxiety
may not have a sense of smell
I have been told (everyone has been told) “not to touch a baby animal when you find it; it will change the smell; its mother won’t recognize it”.
Who will I follow, then?
