Shuffling through my thoughts like yellowed old newspaper clippings I am trying to remember something that is only coming to me in a scent.

Setting aside the faint, flowery smell like pastel settling on my senses as lightly as pollen, I look for other clues. Erin. She has been in my thoughts like wallpaper. I open a door and look around and see her covering the screen where college memories are scrolling quickly, then stopping on her, scrolling, stopping.

Huge, happy blue eyes. Looking back I recall the mood and feeling of college and a roommate in a new place with unfamiliar faces and accents of another state trying to fit into my ears.

But glancing back at the clear images I poke my attention too closely and upset the glassy surface. We're far from it now.

Did Erin have a favorite perfume or lip gloss, something that soaked into the surroundings of our cramped little space?

Tim. I remember the smell of his house like fading lavender hanging in the curtains and towels of a bay side home down a sandy lane lined with scrub grass. Salty air and heat shimmering. But it's Erin that keeps popping to mind…

I am going to look away and maybe my subconscious will step out of its hiding place and hand me the clue it has wrapped up tight against its chest, unwilling to show me yet.

Today I read a message from Jerry: We caught Chippy!

We captured one of the many chipmunks that escape our cats' mouths as they drop into the house form the open window. The chipmunks -- and often birds -- find a corner where they hide and over and over I reach for the have a heart trap, crackers, and peanut butter. I set up the bait and lay down the aluminum tube.

Great! Another victory that went so much more smoothly than the day I sat down on the throw rug to change into running shoes and a bird flew out of my worn Saucony's toe, zipped past my head, and flailed all over the bedroom. He eventually got out.

Lily came bounding in through the doggy door just now and made her whimpering sounds like she can barely keep down her excitement, which escapes from her in high pitched whines as she tries to tell me: I smell so may things!

The forest sleeps during the day and the squirrels, birds, wind, and I pass unnoticed as the dogs sniff for things to come. Night soon drains the day of light. Millions of eyes will open to reflect moonlight; countless little reflections throw back images of tree limbs and humps of land where the stone and earth rise in a mound or drop away toward a stream. The forest is a nocturnal place that waits. As I run through the paths and pass dried vernal pools, outcroppings of stone, fields of low growing shrubs and fallen trees, I have a sense of trespass. I am passing through a place at rest, asleep, and unable to ask me why I have come. When Lily runs ahead and disappears into the woods where she often eludes me for 10 to 15 minutes while I wander alone calling to her, I believe she is rejoining places familiar to her in the night.