And so as I walked to class on that first day in the back rooms of the museum, I thought of my great-grandmother. My Grammy. The regal woman who never wore pants a day in her life. The proper woman who sipped a tiny glass of watered sherry every evening after dinner.
I remembered summers at her home on the Cape. A home sealed with moth balls for most of the year, opened only for a few brief months. I remembered arriving at the house and being overwhelmed by the smell. My mother would quarentine me and my brother in a "safe" room until she could go through the closets, sofas and drawers to remove the thousands of candy-like balls that had spent the winter in the house. Rain or shine, my mother opened every window and door to air out the toxic smell of the napthalene.
I remembered arriving at the house one summer, and asking my mother why it didn't smell. Don't you have to find all the little white balls before we can play? I remembered the triumphant smile on my mother's face as she told me that Grammy wasn't going to use moth balls anymore.
I walked through the back halls of the storied museums on that first day, and wondered at the millions of specimens that had been kept safe from infestation for over one hundred years by the presence of moth balls. The museum hasn't used moth balls in years, and yet the smell lingers on. My mother hasn't used moth balls since I was a child. And yet if I open the drawers of the sideboard in the dining room, I am overcome by the lingering smell of moth balls and summer.
