Sidewalk Art

On my morning walk around my hometown, I remembered how much I loved the sidewalk art created by the leaves printed on the concrete after they have been wet. With only asphalt on the paths around my own home, we miss out on this art! All the sights and scents of the places I have known all my life flooded my senses: the smoky air around the bowling alley, the rubbery/metallic scent by the hardware store, the damp earthy smell of autumn.

In Season to Taste, Molly Birnbaum shares her rediscovery of scents after losing her sense of smell in an accident. Once on the path to being a chef, her world becomes void of the scents that so defined her life. Filled with scientific explanations and interviews, the text engrossed me as I tried to understand the things she was experiencing. The description of her slow acquisition of smell has heightened my own appreciation for the scents that comprise the important and ordinary things in my life.