Far and away my favorite thing about pregnancy is the heightened sense of smell. Walking my daughter to the park yesterday, I was a like a wolf, sniffing the cool breeze, I moved my head from side to side catching different scents on different plains of air. Over here I can smell the perfume of that woman a hundred yards away and tell what she fed her child for snack and if he liked it or not. On this breeze I can smell the cologne and fabric softener mingling as that young couple on the bench over there talk with their heads close together and whether she is sad or angry.I feel like an animal stalking through the woods, identifying every element of my surroundings. I don’t know if it’s the sense of smell or the invigoratingly cool autumn weather we’ve been having but I feel awake, my senses sharp lately. There’s something about summer that is dulling and lazy; cool air wakes me up like a splash of cold water to the face, it’s oddly pleasant.
There are certain memories throughout my life that are instantly triggered by the smell and feel of chilly fresh autumn air; usually fall is a nostalgic time for me but this week in Minneapolis it is so oddly brisk, these memories are being triggered prematurely.
1988
Bus exhaust and the rumbling of diesel engines fill the chilly morning air. I can see my breath even though it is still early in September. My Dad waits with me on the corner for my bus to come: pink bus route 37. Other kids on the bus stop look tired too but the older ones are relaxed, talking to each other, laughing at the occasional joke. The younger ones are spread out, not daring even to look at each other. We are all in brand new clothes, one little girl still has the translucent sticker running the length of her jeans announcing Large, Large, Large, Large. Some people’s first-day-of-school-clothes are too cool for the weather today but, no matter, they are new and cool and they must be worn. Inside my new cloth backpack, my pencil box rattles, filled with new colored pencils, erasers, scotch tape, a glue stick, a ruler, and crayons. I can feel the spirals of my four new notebooks poking my back through the thin jacket I am wearing. Looking up momentarily, my dad winks at my and loudly sips his coffee. A rumble breaks the silence and seven small heads jerk up to see pink bus route 37 pulling to a stop. With an encouraging smile and chuck on the arm my dad ushers me up the steps and away from home. The smell of green vinyl-plastic bus seats fill my nose and the sounds of nervous excitement fill the bus, the occasional toy flies through the air, my feet stutter step to find solid footing on the ridged plastic runner as the bus lurches forward. I search out a seat on a bus crowded with strangers.
1992
Honey Rock camp is where I first learned some of my favorite songs, where I learned that a sleeping bag in a cabin bunk can be a total respite from the world, where the smell of wood-burnings permeate the crisp wooded air, the place where I first passed a swimming test, realized I love the sound of rain beating down on the roof, and where I learned to love grape juice and sloppy joes. At Honey Rock camp, I never stopped running. The fresh, clean, unpolluted air of the woods, of the rustic and damp cabins and moist pine needles served as a system boost and I never felt sluggish or lazy; I ran tirelessly. On the cool scent of autumn air, I can still hear the loud clanging of the cafeteria bell, calling us forth from the “web” an old parachute tied from wall to wall, providing us with hours if simple thrills, from the cold lake, from the crafts cabin, from the dark warmth of our sleeping bags in the still coolness of early morning.
1999
The cool air of September was such welcome relief from the hot and oppressive August humidity. I was eight and a half months pregnant and tired. How many more days would I carry around this added weight? September was resoundingly silent. The noisy chaos, the palpable energy of senior year had led into an even wilder and crazier summer of parties, pot smoking, beer drinking, loud music, and dancing, laughing, screaming, sweating, singing, constant action; the momentum of senior year wouldn’t stop for anyone. Pregnant and crabby, I let the party go by without me. I tried to participate as much as I could but my heart wasn’t in it. I spent the summer, napping, eating, visiting my midwife and looking for a couple to adopt my baby. Now it was September and the parties were over, my fellow graduates were off to college and more parties, a year that would feel much to them like an extension of the summer after senior year. And for me, it was September and real life was about to begin.
2004
By late September, the days are so short. As I walk the eight blocks to the elementary school where I student teach, it is pitch black at five thirty in the morning. No crest of sunlight hints that dawn will be breaking soon; it may as well be midnight. By five thirty in the evening when I walk home, tired and spent, laden with text books to learn and plan from and papers to correct, the sun is already setting. Even though it is not yet October, many of the neighborhood families have their yards decorated for Halloween. In the evening it looks quaint, but in the pitch darkness of early morning, I look over my shoulder over and over again at the masked figure holding stalk-still with a large sickle in his hand, and I rush past the house with half-bodies poking out of the dirt, like the torsos of the dead struggling to free themselves from the grave; chills run up and down my neck. Even at that early hour, I dream of the end of the day when my body will relax from stooping over small desks for the first time all day, and my voice will finally be quiet and my arm will stop pointing and my ears will stop ringing from the constant noise of the halls, and I will enjoy my singular glass of cabernet from the box as I grade hastily completed assignments.
2006
Early October always seems warmer and nicer than all of September. The fall that I had my daughter was gorgeous and warm all the way into mid-November. I spent the early mornings after sneaking from the bed to leave Ryan and Twila sleeping soundly, sipping earl grey and jasmine green tea in front of the computer, typing the first inklings of my memoir about teen-pregnancy. I loved this time of day, my quiet, my peaceful mornings watching the sun break through the cloudy sky. If Twila woke during these morning typing sessions, I held her, cradled in my left arm nursing, while I typed with my right hand. On warm October mornings I cracked the window and let the cool air in, streaming to my nose and waking up my senses. As the sun arose and the sky brightened, as Twila nursed, I listened to the sounds of the diesel engines rumbling by and smelled the faint bus exhaust on the morning autumn air, feeling nostalgic for those first days of school.
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