The Marsh - the smell of home

Right away the word marsh evokes a harsh, pungent thought.  Maybe as I grew up the smell was so awful that I found myself dreading it. And maybe, just maybe that is why I have given so much thought to this.  

I have a love-hate relationship with the marsh.  On early fall mornings, the smell is so pungent it wafts its' way further inland.  You arise and step outside with a coffee in hand on your way to work and feel encircled by it. Much like the stifling summer humidity that always seems to hit you like a wet towel. You know the feeling even after you've showered in the summer and you step out and its' so humid you already feel you need to step back in the shower.

This relationship that I have with the marsh is a conundrum.  You see at some point some teacher once asked me to write about my fears, particularly fears with death.  And per usual my fear always seems to be a little more thought out than others.  You see while I think the marsh is beautiful even with its' tenacious smell, I also fear it.

I would say it stems back to when I first began driving to Woodland Beach as a teen and getting my car stuck in the rising tide.  However, this fear began before that, I feel it was only further perpetuated by that moment.

My fear of dying isn't with death itself, it is dying with the smell of marsh being the last scent I ever smell. Furthermore, this fear is crippled with the idea that this would only occur by me somehow managing to find myself in a most precarious situation - my car sinking with me in the driver's seat and trapped into brackish marsh water.  I'd like to point out here that I've given so much thought to this that I've even researched having an emergency escape tool to break the window.

To add further to this fear - I think about the what if, if I don't escape and this is how I go...my body will bloat and become food for the bottom feeders, and someone will have to identify my body.  And the most important part of this is that the last smell I would have smelled is that diverse metabolic scent of nature twisted with salt air.

Now, I know that this is very dark and I've given way too much thought to it.  So on a lighter note and pushing my fear aside, let me share my love of the marsh.

Even with its' sulfurous rotten-egg smell caused by the billions of bacteria living in its' mud it is also necessary to mankind's survival.  The marsh serves as a carbon sink for our planet.  Just like our need for bees to pollinate plants, we also need marsh and swamp.  So I'll leave you with my words of love for the marsh.

With the buzzing of flies,

And the whisper of the birds wings 

as they fly overhead to swoop in

I listen to the gentle tapping of the grass reeds

as they dance in the slight breeze 

And as they are kissed with the moist humidity

and release that smell of hypoxia

I embrace you

With all of your stank putridness 

You are part of what reminds me of this place I call home.