During these long, cold winter months, when the crisp fall leaf underfoot and the pull of the August ocean pass, when the un-iced walkways around the neighborhood and the dappled sunlight pouring through an early morning window, fade to grey and wind and thought, I am thankful for the sense of smell.
I walk into a room and I stop suddenly because the scent is identical to my grandparent’s home in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I hold my breath because I can scarcely believe how real it is. Cigars, ash, old wood, cookies and orange chocolate doughnuts and cold soda pop bottles on blistering days, along with a collection of a thousand memories dating from the year of our Lord 1914, stretch forward…resurfacing one hundred and nine years later somewhere in New York.
I am suddenly twelve years old, but I’m not…but I am…the sheer magic of re-vibrating collective cells, wind and the hand of God…
690 Saint Paul 