Monday, June 15, 2009

Fishing Poles and Irish Spring

Today, when I stepped off the ALEX train at the Freising train station, a liter of Big Apple Apfelschorle in one hand and my black H & M jacket slung over the other, the blast of cool air in my face caused me to stop in my tracks. Just for a moment. I immediately thought to myself, “It smells like Grandpa.” And it did, exactly as if I had opened the back of his blue SUV—a mixture of fishing poles, Irish Spring and the Minot, North Dakotan air.

I think that is one of my favorite smells ever. I could have stood there for hours, just breathing in the breeze, letting all the people coming from the S-Bahns and the regional trains to sidetrack around me, almost certainly giving me a disapproving glare as they passed.

But I wouldn’t care—I had found the scent of my grandfather hiding in a place 4,670 miles away from the last place I had breathed it in.

And it was mine again.

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