When I associate a scent with my thoughts of you, I imagine that you have the aroma of a forest.

I can almost smell that sweet bouquet of damp leaves hidden from the sunlight for an entire winter. I call it “aspen-sweet” because of the fragrance the aspens exude in the local forest. I can also detect the “sun-scent” that clings to your skin. It’s a bit dry, somewhat heated, and has a slight tinge of muskiness with a clean wholesome natural flavor. Mountain air is the final addition. It flows from you; mostly cool like a high country evening. Occasionally, though, a warm breeze comes across with the tangy odor of pine.

When I close my eyes, I imagine your scent being as familiar to me as the beloved fragrance of my mountains: multi-layered, complex, and evolving.

You carry with you the promise of life.

I picture you traversing the deep red-orange soils of the southern deserts. Sandstone high-rises are merely challenges to you and not the obstacles most others see. They don’t deter you. You slip silently through the various shades of desert green with nary a bit from a cholla neighbor.

The night skies sing out: stars twinkling to the beat, ocotillo thorns whispering the melody, and the giant saguaros dance majestically above you.

This land is a part of you and you of it. It speaks to you, calling out to you. You hear it in your innermost thoughts.

It beckons you.

“Come home.”