11.15.2008

Woodsmoke















Now that the weather has actually started to get cool (might be flurries tonight), I sometimes get a whiff of smoke from somebody's chimney. There's something about smells that seems to be especially powerful for me--a perfume will remind me of a girl I dated in high school, for instance, or certain smells remind me of the woman I love. And then there's this smell of wood smoke that always takes me back to the guest units at the Baptist Seminary in Baguio City, where we used to vacation. The picture above, actually, is from the top of the hill where those guest units were located. One of my favorite parts of staying there: the big ol' fires dad used to build. We sometimes toasted marshmallows on the ends of unbent coat hangers. Was it actually cold enough for a fire? Probably not most of the time. But we loved it.

I'm not sure why these things are coming up--maybe because I'm spending so much time examining everything about the past 30 years.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

AH, yes! You remember that we had to have tons of newspaper to get it going...Nothing like nostalgia...not that I want to relive those times, but just to grasp a pleasurable moment! Grammie

Anonymous said...

Where did we get all those newspapers??? I always found a way to get that fire going and had a great time doing it. What a great picture and what a great memory of times past when life seemed to be simpler. Thanks Chris for this moment of joy for me.