Robert's passing

   I was a bit shocked when Betty told me that Robert had died. Although I hadn't seen him for some time, I was still fully that he had touched me. I just needed to remember.
   Because I hadn't been at the park for quite some time, I must have thought at some recent time that he might not still be alive. Still, the news surprised me. I imagine that although we might fully expect someone to die, perhaps even anticipate it, its difficult to fathom it.
   I  remember being at my father's deathbed in the hospital in Oneonta, New York, waiting for his last breath. I was shocked when it happened.
   When Betty stopped me as we walked in opposite directions around Stow Lake, I felt guilty for thanking her for telling me about Robert. I meant to thank her for informing me, but it felt afterwards like I was thanking her for his death. It's hard to know what to say when you're told of a passing of a person important to someone else; it's confusing when it's someone that you knew only a bit.
   Robert was a man that I talked with only for short periods of time when I had finished my morning walk in the park. He would sometimes tell me a not-very-funny joke, and honestly, I can't really remember much of what else we would speak of. Still, I was moved that he would come out of his car to talk with me as I neared. I don't know what we had in common that might have formed a bond between us, but I felt one, and I believe he did, too.
   Once, I wanted to hug him, but didn't. I don't really understand why I felt so close to him, but he felt like a family member that had always accepted me fully. The news of his death reminded me that I miss him.

Barn smells

   From the ages of about eleven to fifteen, I went to a kind of hippie summer camp in upstate New York, parts of which were a small, working farm. One year, I was assigned to stay with a group of boys in a converted chicken coop.
   During those summers, some of us would play floor hockey in the storage floor of a nearby barn. I loved the smell of the hay there, and although those years were not the happiest for me, there was still something about the aromas there that I have sweet memories of. The smell of the weeds burned to keep away the insects during outdoor evening events, the biodegradable soap we used at the bathing stream, and that hay.
   I  am surprised when I reminded of it that people don't talk more about smelling in a positive sense. I cannot offhand think of another example of a thing that can so powerfully illicit memories seemingly dormant for so long. When people talk of smelling something, it usually is of something they find unpleasant.
   Perhaps most interesting is how the olfactory seems to bring forth past experiences in an almost non-linguistic way. And although I am someone who finds language to possess so much potential beauty, I also can see it as being too dominant and reaching. My nose can often have a better sense of things.