The wind has been relentless the last few days. Whenever people ask me about Daybreak, they NEVER ask me about the wind.

They ask me about:

• The crime: it’s nonexistent.
• The Mormons: they are cliquish and omnipresent.
• The Daybreak activities: there were more of them a few years ago than now, but that’s not really a bad thing because karaoke night is NEVER a good thing.
• The commute to downtown SLC: It’s LONG and miserable.
• The supposed “ghetto” of Daybreak: If that’s a ghetto, then you have lived a very soft life.

But the WIND!

They never ask about the wind that will:

• Steal your BBQ cover, leaving it a quarter mile away, stuck in a neighbor’s tree.
• Hit your backyard with hurricane force micro-bursts that leave garbage all over your yard and rip panels out of your vinyl fencing.
• Knock over your yard umbrella, even though it is fed through your picnic table AND an umbrella stand.
• Relentlessly wear away at your trees, your hair and your will to live as you try to enjoy the outside, ride your bike or even take a simple walk around the lake.

Sometimes they ask about the Daybreak Stench. The wind DOES bring that smell about once a month. I had a commenter complain about it:

As a recent resident of daybreak I just got my first ‘whiff’ and it is APPALLING!! It is absolutely unacceptable and the public should be told about it so they can make an educated decision about the move here. That landfill needs to be shut down!! It can not be healthy and it is a ridiculous statement that you made to ‘stop whining’. Insist on a higher level of living. Become active on fixing the problem…don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. That’s just pathetic.

I find it interesting that the rich folk here in Daybreak think that the solution is to “shut down” the landfill. Where do they think their garbage goes? Apparently, they don’t want it to go in the county landfill. Do they think the neighborhood would smell better if each family had to deal with their own garbage? I wonder how they would like to have to burn, compost or bury their own waste in their own backyard.

As I said before, the Daybreak Stench doesn’t smell all that bad to me. It reminds me of a very happy childhood, just like the smell of a dead skunk on the side of the highway. So many people HATE the smell of a skunk, even if the animal died miles away, but at a certain distance, I’ve found that I like that smell.

I know I’m not SUPPOSED to like it.

I know that dead skunks and landfills are supposed to smell bad, but they don’t to me. This morning, the wind brought the Daybreak Stench into my open windows and I felt joyful. It reminded me of spring mornings in West Valley. It brought to my mind skateboarding on my orange, plastic skateboard all day long, around and around my block in Cherrywood. It made me smile.

I believe that ANY smell can be good or bad, depending on the memories that are attached to it. If you live a few years here in Daybreak and they are happy ones, then the Daybreak Stench will be a happy reminder of your time here. It will remind you of your early morning walks around the lake. It will bring to mind your happy bike rides along the trails, saying hi to the people you passed. It will remind you of the morning after a relentless wind when you finally found the right brick to put on your BBQ cover to keep it in place.

It’s like what William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Should you move to Daybreak? I don’t know. If you are an entitled elitist who believes that landfills should be closed down and insists on “a higher level of living,” then maybe this wonderful neighborhood isn’t for you. Go find another neighborhood and let a NICE person move here instead.