distant perfume

In the place where this memory lives is perhaps the key to open all the other places that hold the stored words and stories that slip away. I am thinking this once again, walking down the street, writing in invisible ink.


Will the thought of how to unlock the other words and live the memories for the second time (perhaps on paper this time) disappear into that other world of shadows and distant perfume? My mind seems to remember it but cannot actually smell the aroma. It is like the memory of a scent. Perhaps this memory can transport me to another state. Is that not as real?

- Deborah Winger, from her book Undiscovered

photo: NYC 6th Ave. circa 1940