At this time of year, few of the flowers are in bloom, so the normally fragrant gardens of Venice are sleeping. On the other hand, people of boughs of pine and holly all over, and there are woodfires going in many chimneys; a cozy, homey smell that is endlessly evocative of Winters of my youth, burnished now by memory from quotidian mundanity to a brilliant and magical perfection of snow, sledding, freedom, and crisp cold.
In making dinner for
I wanted to follow that car back to their house, where I imagined I would also smell baking ginger-bread, and the ozone smell of freshly cleaned model train-tracks laid down in a simple circle under the tree as an electric train clattered over them.
Instead, home. To cook, to read with cats on-hand, to write, to remember.