Ode to Beverages

I have a terrible sense of smell.  No, really.  It's terrible. In the past two years living with my charming housemates at "The Cottage," a tiny home whose unfortunate floor plan had been remodeled countless times since the house was erected in 1911, I can't count the number of times a mysterious smell would drift out of some ancient crevice of the house into the living room and a housemate would grimace, turn to me, and say, "Do you smell that?" 

No.  I never did.  It's lucky that I don't wander around smelling homeless all the time (at least no one has ever accused me of this). 

There are two unfortunate things that spring from this weird semi-disability:  Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, and the sense of smell is also closely tied to taste.  This means that very rarely do I have the experience in which a scent will hit me and cause a flood of memories to come back, and I don't think I'll ever be that much of a "foodie," since I don't have a keen sense of taste either. 

But this morning, as I sipped and truly savored my soy pumpkin spice latte, I discovered my own shortcut around both of those unfortunate disabilities: beverages.  As I enjoyed the warm comfort of my latte, all of a sudden Jamie was standing next to me and we were chatting about something in the St. John's Starbucks that she kept in business during her college career.  This made me think about the whiskey I had been sipping last night, and how, as I savored the warm musky burn, I was actually sitting next to Zach at the Fixin' To as he got lost in a flood of thoughts about a moment he shared with a homeless man on the bus that day. 

In the past few months since graduating, almost all of my close friends have moved away, one by one, to chase their next dreams.  Thankfully, each one of them has left me a beverage.  Chai tea puts me in the sweet and calming presence of Hillary, her intense blue eyes attentively listening.  The right vanilla latte pulls me back to the Flying M Coffee House with Katie, Haley, Lauren, and Liz, talking about inappropriate things way too loud for way too long.  A good craft beer transports me to my parents in Plew's Brews the weekend they rushed up to Portland to be with me or just in their living room in Boise, a cup of milk puts me in the kitchen shooting shit with my brother at 3:00 a.m.  The list goes on and on.

So this morning, I raise my cup to beverages.

(...Pun intended.)

And, I thank each of my loved ones for giving me a beverage that can instantly take me back to our time together, and that we will enjoy together again next time we meet.