Cyrano?

It's hard to explain. Basically, this is about noses.


I like how people smell. I like how houses smell. To be honest, I sometimes even like them when they smell a little bit bad (key words: a little bit). It's human; it's home. And I always wonder what my house smells like to other people.


Sometimes, I will walk through the smell of Avery. Other times, it's Kaitlyn. Or one of the Matts or Kyle or Morgan or Daniel or Madeline. Sometimes it's my parents or my sisters. And I don't really realize what they smell like until I am just walking along and I will smell something like... I can't even describe it.


Avery smells like hair and words and poetry and owning three pairs of the same jeans. Kaitlyn smells like freckles and Ibsen and rice, Matt Davis like climbing and chai and knives, Kyle like record players and equations, Morgan like country music and vanilla bean, Daniel like statistics and purple pants, Madeline like her sister. My mom, for lack of any other way to describe it, smells like perfect energy, my dad like dancing and fatherliness, and my sisters smell like violins and puzzle pieces and crayons, and all of that together smells like home.


I think I smell like songs and like I have too many words for anyone to handle, and like falling in love easily, and I think I smell like falling in love easily isn't always a bad thing.


I mean that in the most metaphorical way possible --  no one smells like owning three pairs of the same jeans. I mean that in the most literal way possible -- people really smell like equations and country music. But how can I describe a smell? It just smells. Like an old folks home and a grape jolly rancher and lighting design.


And it's January now, and things smell like January. Things smell new and old and oak-y. Things smell like learning to shop for wood and learning to appreciate differences of opinions. Things smell human, and they smell like the renaissance. Mostly, things smell different, and things smell like they're changing, but I think that's misleading, because I keep walking through the scent of you.


Goodnight, folks.
All my love,
Addy