Fishing Boat

They say the memory of scent is the strongest one we have. Having forgotten many things it often comes as a shock when the faintest whiff of odour can send me reeling along the paths of my life gone by. Right now the city is covered in a milky fog; the tops of buildings are slowly fading from sight and the air smells of .... well, that's where  memory comes in.

I let my feet have their way as I walk to the train each morning. They know the way by now and I don't feel the need to check on them. It gives me time to think. And as I walked along the puddle-strewn paths I smelled the fog. It was earthy, almost earth-wormy in fact. If you've ever picked your way along a side walk after a heavy rain, trying to avoid stepping on worms you'll know the scent of which I speak.




Suddenly I wasn't on the road to work anymore. I was in a creaky fiberglass boat whose battered oars, painted green, are dangling over the sides. The same milky fod sweeps across the surface of the lake. The water is still as a glossy floor of dark marble. I've been to this place many times in my life - though often as a child. Sounds can only momentarily break through the dence white curtains: the cry of a loon, the rustle of trees on an unseen bank and the wizz-plonk of a fishing line cast.

My Dad taught me to fish long ago. Family camping trips always began the same way - bright orange safety vests, giant coolers stuffed with food, rolls of sleeping bags and tents and, of course, a neatly packaged, styrofoam container of worms. Dad would bait my line, first attaching a little lead weight, then a hook and finally the worm. As I chattered away he would guide my short arms through the motions of casting and reeling. Sometimes I even caught something but I later became convince that it was the same evolutionarily challenged fish.

Even now, as I watch the fog through the office window I can hear the constant 'thunk thunk' of water lapping against the hull of our fishing boat.

Perhaps it was the song that gave mood to the memory but it was nice to remember, even for a short while, what the scent of worms carried on opal shades of fog means to me.