With one breath.

                 Our sense of smell is an amazing thing. The memories and thoughts that can be evoked with one simple breath in is incredible. Today with one normal breath  memories of my childhood came rushing to me.

                It hit me like a ton of bricks when I was driving on a back road. Just on my way home from Wal-Mart. It was nothing special by any means, just a normal drive with all the windows down. The weather was absolutely beautiful so  I had the windows down and the country music station on. Then it hit me. With a deep breath in, the smell of grass mixed with a hint of humidity sent me back to all those past summers I had experienced. It came rushing back so subconsciously, nothing done to evoke the memory at all, only the simple subconscious action of breathing. But there it was,the memory of many childhood summers. Those nights after dinner when I would play outside on my front lawn with my sister. Many times our parents sitting on the front steps  watching me do my 80^th cartwheel across the lawn. The nights we would flag down the ice cream man when he came around the bend and down our block, always stopping on the opposite side of the road in front of my neighbor’s house.

One deep breath in and immediately I thought of those summer nights and the ice cream man. One breath was all it took. Not a hint of forced action, solely the memories rushing to my mind in less than a second.