The smell of thankful

  I am one of those people; those people with sensitive sniffers.  Smell to me is a base sense, connected to memories, people and emotions. In fact, I am so weird about it, I try to live in a bubble of Happy, the perfume.  Ask those around me. They can bear witness to my perfume bubble.
  I remember scents more than faces or words.  I smelled a slightly off apricot last summer and was transported to a summer when I was young and my great aunt thought I should drink apricot brandy to calm my stomach pains. I remember the smell of my hospital rooms when I had my kids, the smell of the floor wax on the first day of school, and the smell of my first boyfriend's cologne in middle school mixed with the smell of sweat from those around us at the school dance. (Wait, maybe that was the smell of his sweat but bear with me.)
   So lately, in the rush that is everyday,  I have not smelled anything exceptional.  I have rushed through each day doing the best I can,  being the best I can and collapsing in bed each night, never once having breathed deeply.

 Until yesterday.
   Yesterday I smelled thankful in big deep gulps of scent with my daughter walking hand in hand through the conservatory at Long Wood Gardens.  We walked into the orchid room and the smell was  sweet and heavy but the moment was light and lovely.
  "Oh, hello sniffer!" my brain thought.  "Are you cataloging this moment?  Are you memorizing the tones of orchid? The look on your daughter's face as she takes that picture? The peace that comes on the waves of fragrance?  Connect these moments.  Be connected to these moments." My brain and my nose are very good friends.

  Thankful may smell different to everyone and that is how it should be.  Thankful can also smell differently at different times- the smell of a baby's head, rain in the spring, that first shovel full of dirt turned over in the garden, your child's cereal breath in the morning, cinnamon on a cold day, and the list goes on and on. ( I, for example, love when my husband has been working outside and comes in smelling of campfire smoke and hard work.)

  Thankful to me this week smelled like orchids, ripe and rich and blooming in December.  Ripe and rich and very special- blooming like it was their job for my daughter and I as we strolled through their midst; deep in conversation about life, love, and education.

A plethora of thankful in intricate blooms of tropical color forever linked in my mind. An everyday miracle thankfully linked in my heart.