Thursday, August 23, 2007

Tripped on any good smells lately?

A few days ago, the pack and I were running around campus (leashes off--ah, the freedom!) with some friends, including 7-year-old J-boy. I had called Lily back to me from quite a distance--maybe 30 yards or so. Being the almost-well-trained dog she is, she immediately dropped what she was doing and ran straight to me. And then, halfway to me, she stopped abruptly and stumbled a bit as she skidded to a halt, turned around and began to root around in the ground for something.

J-boy, having seen all this, turned to me, and, sounding a bit worried, said, "I guess she tripped over something." I said, "Yeah, I think she tripped over a smell."

He saw what I meant almost immediately, and has been revisiting the joke frequently. "Have you tripped over any good smells lately, Lily?" "Smell this, but don't trip!" It's pretty cute.

So, the phrase is on my mind a bit, and comes to the fore when I notice myself smelling something. For instance, lately I've been tripping over the smell of the basil in the herb garden just outside my kitchen door. And, what a delight it is when I remember to set the timer on my coffeemaker and groggily trip all the way down the stairs on the smell of freshly brewing coffee!

I've also been thinking a little about the idea of tripping on a smell in another sense, that sense in which a smell takes you on a trip, usually down memory lane. There are a thousand smells, I'm sure, that would take me instantly back to my mother's kitchen, but I can't really thiink of any right now. It's very hard, for me at least, to bring a smell to mind without a smell to remind me. Funny how easily the memories come flooding back together with a smell, and how hard it is to remember a smell.

Trippin' on smells, indeed.

1 comment:

htc said...

I think that the fuller your house gets, the more frequently you're blogging. Does this mean you could soon be blogging hourly?