The monster in my motorhome!

One evening, I was reading peacefully in my motorhome. All of a sudden, I looked up from my book and there it was -- a monster! Yes, this is true. Lucky for me, my video camera was at my side so I was able to document this surprise visit. If you care to see the monster and then learn where it appeared from, all you need to do is click the 30-second video. Be prepared to be amazed.

My old hometown, Nevada City, California

My parents moved our family to Nevada County, California in the mid 1960s at the beginning of my senior year of high school. We lived in Grass Valley, which is a twin city to Nevada City in the heart of the Northern California gold country. I soon left for Sacramento where I attended college and then worked for years.

About 1990 I moved back to Nevada County, this time to Nevada City, where I lived for the next five years before moving with my wife and then-young daughter to Seattle. Here is a little video I put together a few years ago about Nevada City. I'm writing this now on Feb. 2, 2011: I'm headed to Nevada City tomorrow for a short visit.

The smell of my father in a Ziploc bag

I was cleaning out some boxes the other day and I came across my father's hairbrush. My father died three years ago. When packing up his stuff back then, I placed the brush in an air-tight Ziploc bag and stored it with other items.

The brush has many short bristles, and it picked up a lot of hair. Every so often a brush like that needs to be cleaned. My father's had not been cleaned in a long time, and contained hundreds of his hairs.

What a surprise I got when I opened that Ziploc bag! It was like my father had walked right into the room: I could smell him! I put my nose even closer to the bag and the smell was stronger. If I closed my eyes, my father was there! It was unnerving. It made me sad, because all of a sudden the memory of him was overpowering, and I felt briefly the same emptyness I felt in the days and weeks after he died.

AFTER THINKING ABOUT THIS for a few days I realized that smell is the one sense we can't actually imagine at will. I mean, if I close my eyes I can almost see my father's face. If I concentrate I can hear his voice. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember what he smelled like.

My mother, who also died recently, wore the same perfume every day. When I came into a room, if she were there I would sometimes know it before I saw her. But if I try to remember the smell of that perfume, I cannot. Yet, if someone were to walk into my room today wearing it, I would immediately recall my mother.

I don't believe that anyone can just imagine a smell of the past at will. I believe you must actually smell it. I don't even recall a dream that involved smell.

What do you think?