When I walked into the kitchen, she was smelling it through the package.
“ What are you doing?” I asked.
”Smelling it.” she said “It smells like Florida.”
It was just a pool float. Deflated and not yet used. I bought it for an upcoming holiday.
She got kind of quiet and then said “I didn’t know I liked that smell.”
In truth our move overseas has been hard on our kids. All of them. My youngest son misses his family. My oldest son misses his family and also friends. He was in middle school when we left and that’s a difficult time anyway.
But my daughter? She misses home and all there was to it. The sounds, the people, the smells of ordinary things.
She’s arguably the one who took the move the hardest, but then adjusted the easiest. And I wonder if it’s because she’s that thoughtful one who smells vinyl and takes a mental trip home. If she’s connecting to home in her own ways all the time while simultaneously forming new attachments to things here in much the same way.
Presence is such a gift. It gives you the ability to stop chatting with your friend for a minute in order to connect to something meaningful. In this case the irony is that an act of presence was able to give a quick visit to her past.
We should all strive to be ever ready for those moments when they arise. Nothing enriches your life quite like being dialed in to Presence. It keeps the scope manageable. And it keeps home tucked into all the pockets and corners of your heart.
onsenseandnonsense.com 