where've you been?

      One afternoon this week I went outside, after having stuffed myself behind doors the morning long, and drew in a great breath. The kind that takes in all the smells of autumn and says haahhhhhhh afterward. There was something in that whiff that whirled me back to being eight years old and building forts in the trees behind the house with my brother. I tried to define the ingredients to myself but they only laughed and circled me. Pale in nature, revealing little but, darn it all, making me feel so much. I didn't know I knew that smell or that I'd forgotten it, that I even liked it and that it had powers! That I'd missed it!