Fondness for Fog

Today was foggy.  I love it. I like sunshine too but I love fog in the fall.  The smell of decomposing damp leaves in the air, the wetness of the atmosphere against my face, the blurry images made worse with more light, and the faint hint of intrigue and mystery make me feel safe and young again.  As a child I loved to walk up our dead end street in the fog. One side of the road was a prairie.  The other side of the road was my grandparent's farm.  At the end of the dead end was the "dump."  The "dump" was another one of my favorite places.  It wasn't used as a dump anymore but there were things down in that ravine that were put there many years ago.  I would find treasures like old tin cans, glass bottles, car parts, and oven doors.  A badger lived in the dump and it scared the living day lights out of me once.  When I walked toward the dump in the fog, unable to see very far, relying on my memory of the road and where things should be, I felt like I had entered another dimension.  I felt adventurous and brave.  Anything could happen in the fog because you couldn't see it coming. Nothing ever did happen in the fog but it could have.  The possibility of danger and excitement lurked close by.   The faint light from my grandparent's kitchen window was a beacon of safety and reality. Fog is damp but as long as the air is humid, I don't feel as cold.  Sometimes an old song or an old smell can bring you back in time.  Fog does the same thing for me.  Today I was 7 years old again.