The smell of where I grew up is complex but visceral. One year I took a road trip right before the holidays, driving down through Oregon and California and up to Nevada before traversing back across the desert in eastern Oregon then through the Dalles and back up to Puget Sound. All of the towns along the way had trees and lights, but it didn't seem right. Then when I got to Olympia I smelled it--the salt water along with the conifer trees in the region, and the lights and decorations worked, it felt like xmas. And any time I get back to salt water it feels like I can really breathe again.

Coffee--my childhood memories of coffee perking on the stove, and of my parents sitting at the little kitchen table with the speckled blue melmac cups of coffee. Dad drank his with sugar and milk, and there was always a little left in the bottom of the cup so I could get a careful taste, leaving the few grounds on the bottom of the cup. I've never been a coffee drinker except for back then.

SRS