Cigarettes and Musk

I am walking down the frozen food isle of the grocery store, and I pass through a cloud of scent: cigarettes and musk. The chrome and glass freezers, the white floor, dissolve and I'm in another place in time and space. No, several places at once. One is a particular dorm room, with a particular young woman. She's the smoker. Another is the stairwell of that dorm as I've just walked through a cloud of cigarettes and musk and stopped in my tracks, mirror image in time of this moment. One is a lake shore at night, my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. There are others. To call them memories, no, they are then and now simultaneously.

This happened to me last night. I blinked hard a couple times, literally, returning to the "present moment" that my mind can deal with for more than a few seconds without going into a tailspin. 15 years later, my god. And I picked up the frozen blackberries Jae wanted for desert the next night, tonight, when we have company. And I walked back to my house, vivid in its warmth after the cold of outside, and my wife, my very favorite human, and I think about how poor we are for having to live our lives serially, frame by frame.