Quiet Moment for Quiet Thoughts

I am writing from my kitchen table, which I usually reserve for writing papers. It’s funny, isn’t it, that we try to protect certain places in our home in this way? For example, I write papers ONLY at the table because on the couch or in the office I can’t focus. I usually check email for Randolph in bed, but I also will get a lot done on the couch. I can only print things off in our office, but Facebook is good for the living room couch. So it feels strangely odd to be blogging from the kitchen, but as I sat here on the computer I kept smelling my husband’s cologne (he’s a clothes-shedder and two of his shirts are draped across the back of the chair I’m sitting in) and it brings back a FEELING of nostalgia. You know that smell when the cologne has worn of cause it’s the end of the day and more than likely mixed with that laundered scent off his clothes? Throw in a little bit of soap and it’s a warm, comfy smell. The color of the smell is brown—I think of an old brown leather couch, old brown teddy-bears, a brown comforter. So the nostalgia it dredges up isn’t specific memories, but rather a feeling of being….brown? Maybe you think this is weird. I know brown isn’t the best color; in fact, Winston Churchill once said, “I rejoice with the brilliant colors and feel genuinely sorry for the browns.” And in general I prefer MANY other colors to brown, but the best I can explain it is that when I was little I used to imagine I had won a child’s lottery and had built me and my family two houses—one was a four story mansion (the fourth floor being entirely for my use, of course), and the other was a one story, 5 bedroom house (so none of my siblings and I would need to share a room again!) with one room decorated like a hunting lodge—all deep, soft brown carpet and wood paneling and a deer head on one wall opposite a wall with floor to ceiling shelves that cradled a library of books. Of course, I’d never actually been to a hunting lodge, but this was my idea of a haven of peace. And that is the feeling this wonderful smell reminds me of. I have much to do, but thought this nostalgia deserved honoring.