When I was a child, I spent a lot of summers at my grandmother's house in Santa Rosa, California. She lived on a leafy street across from a large ranch home with a working orchard. Down the street was a park lined with California Laurel and Eucalyptus trees that perfumed the air, especially when it was hot.
As I write this post, I can still smell those trees and recall the palpable heat of July in Santa Rosa. My grandmother loved to walk, and we would spend at least a hour every Saturday walking in that park.
Then I would go home, develop a horrible headache and a churning stomach, and lay motionless for the rest of the evening, unaware of what was wrong with me.
After I grew up and moved to Humboldt County for college, I discovered that I was extremely sensitive to California Laurels. They give me a horrible headache.
True, I have beautiful and sentimental memories of walking with my grandmother in that park, of sharing those times with her, but I would never want to return to
