The hardest part about learning to sleep in a new house for me was how the house smelled. For the most part, they were all clean, and some of them were amazing, the air inside full of Febreze or fabric softener—just, every house smells like itself and in the dark and quiet, most times the scent is there to anchor you to where you are. Nothing kept me awake worse than lying in the dark, thinking, Is that eucalyptus? Menthol? Is there a gas leak and we’re all going to die? Where is the window in this room?…Will I be able to get the other kids out the window in time— Oh man we’re on the second story….Do I drop them down in the bushes or will the fire department bring one of those giant circle trampoline things?…Those look fun; I hope I get to jump down on it….But what if I aim wrong and land on the driveway?…Wait, does this house have a driveway or do they park on the street—no, that was two houses ago….And then I’d hear birds singing and the light in the room was gray and brightening fast—up all night just in time to get up and zombie off, bleary-eyed, to school.

One Easter in fourth grade, I think, I had a really good basket. People donate things for kids in foster care, and every kid in that house got chocolate bunnies (solid, not hollow) and marshmallow Peeps and sidewalk chalk and bubbles and about a million things of jelly beans. I put my face into the plastic Easter grass and just inhaled. The other kids laughed, and I did, too. I mean I was huffing Easter candy. But it gave me the best idea.

Jelly beans in my pillowcase. They smelled so sweet and good, so familiar, that I slept all night straight through. It was heaven. Until the ants came.

I walked to the store every day after school, smelling my way up and down every candy aisle, searching for an alternative, but nothing smelled enough like jelly beans that wouldn’t also necessitate another visit from an exterminator. The poor mom. Those ants were relentless and everywhere; I needed something sugarless that was flat and could maybe stay packaged but still smell good.

John Muir must have had such a terrible time sleeping in a bed inside a house after so many years outside in open-air Yosemite. For the worst of winter, he built a cabin for himself on the valley floor but over a flowing creek, so that it ran free right in the middle of the floor and out the back. What a cold, clean scent. What a sound to sleep to, rushing water splashing over a stone creek bed, right there beside him. Maybe it drowned out the pain of his unbrushed teeth and gums.

Gum. Flat, wrapped, sugarless.