The smell of swingset hands

I realize now why I like Long Island City so much--it reminds me of Hollywood, Florida, the town where I spent a great deal of my childhood. My grandparents lived at 2215 Jackson Street on a semi-industrial block with an empty lot (well, empty except for a grapefruit tree) next door and an ice factory across the street.

My childhood memories of that place consist of smells: Chanel for Men (my grandpa's cologne), chainlink fence, overripe sapadillas that looked more like small round gray mammals hanging pendulously from the trees behind the laundry room, the hot bleach smell of my grandmother's nonstop wash, steaming pavement, empty beer cans on the sidewalk, and decomposing underbrush. I suspect that even building rubble emits an odor, because as I walk past the empty lots here in Queens, some inorganic smell jogs my memory.

I love these sensory triggers, along with the smell of diesel fumes and the sound of freight train whistles that hung in the air in my hometown. It's no mystery why my first word was "truck."

Even though I've got a black thumb, I truly enjoyed the Times' magazine section this weekend, which was devoted to landscape architecture. My favorite article was about Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a public park built in the ruins of an old factory. It's evidence to me that natural beauty can coexist with(in) the remnants of our industrial history.

Also in this issue was a great Andy Goldsworthy profile, a sculptor whose work is completely organic and mutable and also just as lovely to me as the Rutland Railroad paths that are slowly sinking into the overgrowth of upstate New York forrest.