It’s amazing how smells can trigger memories. Today I walked the dog down to the house my brother- and sister-in-law are fixing up. It’s a small, old house, and right now it smells like sawdust and paint.
That paint smell brought back vivid memories of a time that now seems like a dream. We were young, fit and free. We didn’t worry about money. We came and went as we pleased. There was always music playing, and plenty of sex.
The 1960’s? No, fifteen years ago when my wife and I were first married and living in our first apartment. That little space, with its oddly-dimensioned attic loft and diner around the corner, was just perfect for us. Somehow the smell of fresh paint in my brother-in-law’s house zipped me back to when we newlyweds first moved into our cozy fixer-upper flat, only fifteen years, and yet a lifetime, ago. Good days then, and now, and Lord willing, to come, with my lovely bride.