Spice.

Kurt remembers ...

There have always been so many leaves that you can push them aside for a while but never hope to eliminate the crunchy walk to the house.  Down the drive or across the wooden pathway dad built years ago.  

The walnuts on the ground are mostly open and add a spice to the air.  A walnut tree came down in the summer and I’ve been grabbing bits of it to burn in the fireplace.

The front door makes the exact sound it made 40 years ago when I would try to sneak in or out.  No chance of stealth with the squeak of the brass handle and release from the cedar jam.

I remember, too.

The winding road to the top of the hill, though the house sat just below its crest. Trees were everywhere. Indoors, outdoors, the smell was the same ... the scent of woods. Sweet balsam on nearly imperceptible breezes that carried a perfume that I've always searched for and tried to artificially replicate.  Impossible.

Bachelard wrote of infinity in The Poetics of Space ...

These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.  Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.