Today I snuggled up against my skin after baking little French buns. At another time I would have smelled of almonds, butter and eggs, milk and sugar. I don't sense it, of course – not really anyway – and there's no one here to describe what I smell like to me. Lying in bed in the early afternoon, I try for a faint whiff of my lotioned arms after a shower, and I imagine the aroma from the oven of just a few minutes before.
I've been eating more. Baking more, eating more. It's compensatory, I know. But compensation for what? Missing smells? Missing family? I live within the barely perceptible sensation – barely because I don't actually want to feel it – that smell and love are commingling in their absence. My breath, my literal intake of air, feels empty. Love and being loved feel like the fullness of breath. Imagine this empty air. Breathe in. There's a clarity to it, but also a lightness. That's my missing-sensation.
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