Way Up High

My summer home sits way up high at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It is called "Colorful Colorado" because of the magnificent scenery of mountains, rivers and plains. There's this vintage trailer, a 1951 Royal Spartanette, all hunkered down in a pretty little aspen cove. That Silver Moonbeam keeps the rain out on days when the sky turns onimous with thunderclap. Those kinds of days are more frequent than not and they never last very long. Taking refuge inside the "tin can" is like a gentle hug. The whole interior is warm, blonde maple (or is it pine?) from top to bottom. It smells like worn wood, slightly musty, like an old bookstore, but with a hint of pine sap. After a rain, I push the little screened windows out by the lever as far as they will go and then the magic starts wafting in. It's a slight breeze, not the wind I'm accustomed to in Wyoming, but a soft sigh. Like blowing on a dandelion. It's like that. In comes the scent of Ponderosa Pine, with her red bark, the long needles, cones dripping in sticky piney goo, all that together make my senses more aware, more alive. It's the smell of moisture, how dirt smells after a rain. I smell the wildflowers, they are sweeter now, and the hummingbirds crowd around anything pink. A deep inhale, I think I'm breathing in the aspens and when I see their quivering leaves, I get chills, just a split second's worth, and I know I'm alive. I smell lavender and become calm. I see yellow petals of wild arnica and I am healed. The lupines make me smile while the pale grey and green leaves of the sagebrush, which are everywhere on this land, are bursting with the fragrance of earthy musk, drifting through the window screens, filling up the trailer. It's like an instant smudge stick, a healing and cleansing from nature, unceremoniously. Oh! All this display of color, of essence, all the beauty around us! It's enough to make you howl, like the coyote I pray to see more of. It's enough to make you scream like a bobcat. Like the twin bobcats that climb around our rocks.

Life in the Rockies. Here we are, in this secluded pocket of the world. A rather small patch at that, but, in fact, this is all anybody needs or could want. The trees, the wildflowers, the blooms, the smell of all things nature. It blends nicely with patchouli and bergamot and a splash of wind. My signature scent.