Toasted marshmallows
Yesterday I rode my motorcycle to school. It was a clear beautiful day, warm enough for short sleeves on a bike, but not yet hot enough to feel like I’m riding through an oven. I was sitting in traffic (because every season in Atlanta is traffic season, after all), but content to enjoy the warm sun on my arms and the smell in the air. It was a sweet smell, a smell that brought childhood memories, a smell completely incongruous with the other smells of traffic. It was the smell of baking sugar.
At first I thought of fresh spun cotton candy, right out of the machine with the smell of warm liquid sugar still on it. I even looked at the car next to me to see if it was filled with inflatable baseball bats and cheap stuffed animals, or maybe a kid puking out the window. But I could discern no tell-tale signs of a visit to a carnival, and was about to give up when I caught another fresh whiff of the hot sugar smell, and decided that more specifically, it smelled scorched, like roasted marshmallows. Memories of camp fires and sing-alongs flooded my consciousness, but mercifully, the light turned green and I left the smell behind.
Or so I thought. At the next light, the smell was still there, and I briefly wondered if I was having a stroke. I read somewhere that strong odors are a sign of stroke, but that’s not such a helpful determinant for me and my beagle nose. A mile later, I was waiting for another light all alone, and feeling very coherent but still smelling toasted marshmallows. It was then, after 5 miles, that I admitted the smell was coming FROM me, not AT me. And that’s when it hit me: It was the smell of pollen burning on my motorcycle engine and tailpipes. Springtime in Atlanta had officially begun.
Those of you who have never lived in Atlanta are probably still confused, so let me explain. Atlanta, as I found out from watching the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics, has the highest number of trees per capita of all major cities. It’s also known for its flowering shrubs, and even I, the roof-loving plant-phobic butch, have 30 azalea bushes in my front yard. Atlanta in the springtime is the plant kingdom’s 4th of July, with foliage fireworks going off everywhere. People even stop to point and say “oooh” and “aaaah.” But it comes at a price: pollen.
Around the first week of April, a thick layer of greenish yellow dust settles on the city, and an overnight dusting may be so thick that I have to run my wipers before I can see to drive. Newscasts offer reminders to wash your pets more frequently, change air filters and stock up on allergy medicines.
And then there’s the daily pollen count, the measure of how many pollen particles were measured in a square inch over 24 hours. A measurement of 60 to 120 is high, and anything over 120 is “extremely high”, as high as the scale goes. This is when the scale turns red, as in “Danger, Will Robinson, danger, danger!” Higher than 120, your allergies are guaranteed to be triggered. The Atlanta pollen count this morning was 1089. Atlantans in April look puffy-faced and miserable, like every one of us just spent the last two weeks crying over a break-up.
And the count hasn’t even peaked yet. Last year we hit 5862. I know I’m going on and on about it, and it’s probably the type of thing that gets boring to hear described if you haven’t seen it for yourself. But let me tell you, nothing says “extreme environmental conditions” quite like seeing someone driving down the road with the windows up and a respiratory mask on. And then to see another one. And another one.
Though I’ve lived here all my life, I’m still amazed by what happens when every Loblolly pine in Atlanta sneezes simultaneously. And each year, it seems, I have some new experience that reminds me JUST HOW MUCH FREAKING POLLEN IS AROUND ME. Like smelling toasted marshmallows at every stop light for five miles while the thick layer of pollen on my tailpipes burns off.