The Smell of Time

We spent each summer of my childhood in Vermont, renting out our house near the beach on Long Island to finance the school vacation of my teacher father.   The scramble to clean out the home for renters and at the same time pack clothes, cat and five children into one car for the seven hour trip north, was an operation we all suffered through.  With last minute cleaning, and timing to miss the traffic that could ensnare us as we skirted the City, we often left in the evening and drove through the night. 

When we got up to the Vermont house, we always set up the big tent in the backyard as an extra bedroom.  With foam pads, inflatable mattresses and half a dozen flannel lined sleeping bags, there was room for as many of us who would choose the tent at night to sleep, even if it meant cold dew soaked feet when we ran back to the house for breakfast. 

The tent was also a favorite place to nap after our midday swim at Fern Lake.  Given that we lived in a place called Leicester Swamp on old maps, refuge from mosquitoes was required, at least until August.  The smell of canvas in the sun, mixed with the tang of well-used bedding, together with the sap of white pine, and in some years the aroma of the summer horse we corralled right next to the tent, was a perfume  I have never found again but can still remember.  It was the smell of all the time in the world.