These are a few of my...

...favorite smells.

Yesterday on facebook I posted 'I forgot how good a cup of black coffee tasted.'  And, later in the day a dear friend posted how she remembered the smell of her grandfather's black coffee, ending with a sigh.  I think it made her a bit melancholy, rekindling old, but pleasant memories.

This got me to thinking about the play "Our Town" in which Emily, who dies during childbirth, laments about the things she will miss and is sorrowful she will..."never smell heliotrope again."  How I forget, or don't seem to have the time to breathe in my favorite scents, deeply, joyously every single day...it's free, and takes so little time...why don't I just lean over, and smell my favorite rose?


This morning I seemed to recall I once wrote a list of some of my favorite smells and I began rummaging through my mountain of things I've jotted down over the years and found it...boy aren't you lucky?  Here it is:


Tomato plants
Cinnamon
Bread baking
Home made vegetable soup
pumpkin pie
lilacs
lily-of-the valley
arbutus
vanilla
rubber erasers
spice cake
freshly cut cedar boughs
heliotrope
a baby's breath
roasting turkey
April rain
ozone
...oh, I could go on and on, but sadly, this was the end of my actual written list.

I'm sure all of you must at least have a mental list of your own favorite smells, if you don't I hope you'll start one.  Nothing on my list has changed, even though it's been years since I've looked at it, and nothing on it surprised me.  All bring back good, sweet, wonderful memories.  Why I don't continue to add to it is a mystery?  I should you know, because I don't want to be like Emily, and lament I didn't have or take the time...'to smell the heliotrope again'.

 Life is short.  Breathe deeply, dear friends...breathe deeply.