2023-06-17: the whisky smell of summer

i'm not really a visual person — something in my brain, at least in terms of its associations, leans far more towards the auditory and olfactory. i was thinking this earlier as i was out back with the dogs, in 30+ degree heat, sitting in an adirondack chair with a bourbon, baking slowly in the heat —

this smells like the old house —

and it did — i used to sit out in our backyard with a finger of bourbon after coming home from work, and would watch our old dog roam the perimeter, watch him check things. the prairie lillies, then the big bush, then the big pine tree — and from there, the back fence, the shed, the oil tank behind the garage. i've always loved sitting outside at the end of the day with a beer, but switch to whisky when i'm feeling self conscious about my weight, which is a lot. and anyway, bourbon is a summertime whisky.

that house doesn't exist anymore. it was on a double lot; we sold it before the most recent real estate spike, and its days were numbered. some time after we sold, it was torn down, and two deep, narrow houses were built in its place. this made me a little sad. i wasn't surprised. whoever did that was going to make a lot of money. but, it was still my first house. yeah, the foundation had issues (a lot of issues). yeah, it didn't have ac. but it had gracefully worn hardwood and a huge solid oak front door — which we refinished before we sold — and let me tell you, taking that thing off its hinges and moving it to the backyard for sanding/refinishing — jesus christ —

other smells trigger other memories for me. lilacs for the house i grew up in. and tomatoes for where i live now. specifically: collecting the last cherry tomatoes off the vines in september, my first dog, two years gone, stealing individual tomatoes from the big ikea bowl, trying to be stealthy, taking them a dozen feet away to eat them before returning to steal again.

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