My old home…the sounds…the smells…the dirt road packed tight beneath my steps, which are quiet, just sneaker treads skimming the solid earthen road path. I walk down the gradual hill…in my mind…into an autumn past. There, I smell the rotting apples, the “drops,” which are acrid and sharp. I follow the curve of the roadway — Van Dyke it’s called — which widens at the base of the hill, my parents home behind, at the top. My thighs relax for a moment after bracing against the downhill grade. Now my hamstrings begin to pull as I climb the next rise of road to where the nearby apple orchards will smell strongest…at the crest.

Slowly the meditation dissolves, the smell of apple is gone. I’m drawn back by another bunch of grapes that appear in the center of our path. The leaves from the vine, still attached to the rotting grape mound, have crisped, in a dry, dusty passage of time. The dog trots beside me, her ears flapping slightly like a rabbit’s, her nails, click, click, clicking loudly on the pavement. Find the smells and sounds that are here…right now. Sense fully this autumn night that envelops me…a new memory built…in California.