Sense Memory

There was a game we’d play in elementary school where we’d ask each other, 
“If you had to lose one of your senses, which one would you choose?” 
I always took this very seriously.
I’d think, and think, and think, until I’d eventually always land on smell.

If I had to lose one of my senses, 
I would choose smell. 
Everytime.

I figured this way I wouldn’t forget my mom’s face, or how my grandmother’s cooking tastes. My sister’s laugh or my grandfather’s jokes. 
I’d feel hugs and see mountains and taste the cake on my birthday each year. 
After thinking it over, losing smell seemed like the only logical option in an irrelevant game.  

No more smelling garbage or litter boxes or holding my breath on city streets. 
No more dirty socks or sweaty classrooms after PE. 

Logical. 

And then, one day years later, 
I woke up and couldn’t smell my coffee. 
I went around my apartment picking up anything with a smell-
Nail polish, candles, the blanket my grandmother crocheted for me. 
The litter box. 

Nothing. 

And suddenly I thought back to elementary school.
How my answer had been so logical, made so much sense. 
But when I opened my window, took a deep breath, 
And was met with a one dimensional breeze,
I blinked back tears. 

I avoided stories of people who’d had the virus and couldn’t smell two years later.
People who, yes, could see, and taste, and feel, and hear, but smell was gone. 
I tried not to think about going to Mendocino and not smelling the salt air. 
Or hugging my mom and not smelling her hairspray.
Going to my Grandparents’ house and not smelling Sabbath lunches. 

Pulling laundry out of the dryer and not being met with a rush of warm detergent and fabric softener. 
Picking up my cat and not breathing in her fur. 
Climbing into bed and having my wet, shampooed hair fall in my face and just feeling the cold.  

Having to stick to the same lotions and body washes because I remember I liked how they smelled when I bought them.
Never feeling the three dimensional warmth of a blanket and cool of Seattle air. 
My younger self had been wrong. But, then again, there is no right answer. 
Not when it’s suddenly a relevant question.

And when I got out of the shower the next night,
And sprayed my lavender linen spray out of habit,
And smelled the sweet flower,
I grabbed my cat,
And smelled my own skin,
And burned every candle,
And curled up in the blanket,
And opened my window,

And breathed in so deep.