Patriot Realm

To those of us who live down under, Summer is a coming in and , for our friends in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter chill is well on its way. 

The strange thing is that the smells associated with our seasons are woven into our memories, like snapshots from the past.

As a child, I grew up in the country and, to this day, the smell of freshly mown grass or newly harvested hay takes me back to a time of happiness and security.

Unlike any other sense, the sense of smell seems to trigger my mind more than any of my other senses.

It got me to thinking about the power of smell and how tragic it must be to those affected by the Chinese Virus that they lose this conduit to the past and the rich memories that those scents and aromas evoke in our hearts.

In Australia, I have come to associate the smell of coconut oil with summer. Those long hot days of the 1970’s and 1980’s  at the beach and the ever present scent of getting a tan – before the great awakening that made us change from coconut oil to sunscreen.

The hot, humid Queensland nights when the pungent aroma of the aeroguard was punctuated by the citronella of the mozzie coils and the rich and tantalising beckoning of the BBQ was too great to keep us indoors and away from our steaks and snags.

The smell of rain and the approaching thunderstorm after that oppressively hot summer’s day when we had wilted and grown weary from the sweat and the life sapping heat that had built up from dawn until dusk. That magnificent smell of the ocean or the frangipani on the front lawn when the kids played under the sprinkler and we all sat around, drinking beer and listening to Gangajang.

In winter, we smelt the log fires burning and the cinnamon and nutmeg from  Grandma’s favourite biscuits.  The eucaplytus oil as we wheezed and coughed because we had a cold.

That wonderful security blanket of the cup of hot chocolate or horlicks when we were too sick to go to school, missed our friends and felt the comfort of our mother’s love in a mug of warm milk.

The smell of the raisin toast, piping hot from the toaster, the coffee brewing, or the kitchen;  sending beams of heavenly delights;  in the form of crispy bacon and lashings of love to stimulate our taste buds and make us rise, as if from the dead, to mingle in the kitchen and give Mum a hug.

Apologies to Gangajang for using your beat.

 Maple syrup and pancakes, hot scones and last autumn’s  apricot jam; the smell of love was in the air.

That glorious smell of winter stew or soup.

I have never worn a mask and I will not do so.

In wearing a mask, I fear that my sense of smell will be diminished.

It just doesn’t seem right to me to deprive me of my ability to speak without sounding muffled; my ability to breathe without being stifled; my ability to smile or express outrage without my emotions being stifled.

My ability to hear what I want to hear has been stolen. My ability to see what I want to see is being shut down.

My ability to touch has been taken from me.

No one has the right to steal my sense of smell.

Sadly and most worryingly, all I can smell right now is the stench of raw prawns turning putrid in the sun; the foul odour of dead  ‘roos and the road kill of 2020; the nauseating smell of hypocrisy, deceit and treachery.

It seems to me that the mask is just a tool to deprive us of our sense of self; our ability to enjoy life and participate in the wonder of winter, the sense and scents of summer and the hope of a future where seasons and the smells that they create are consigned to the filing cabinet in the basement labeled  a thing of the past.

With this recent USA election, all I can smell is a big rat.

With the “ Great Reset “ and the Climate Change push, the global gravitation to renewables, censorship,  election fraud and hate speech, all I can say is that if Sniffy Joe Biden steals the Presidency, we will never smell the joy of freedom ever again.

What does freedom smell like? Well, I will tell you:

It smells like freshly mown grass, newly harvested hay;  coconut oil and cinnamon. It smells like a BBQ, a minted tea on a southern porch swing and it also smells like the scent of your best friends or Granny when you have a hug.

It smells like family. It smells like love.