My senses were taken aback today by the aroma of coffee grounds while walking down a corridor at my office. I smell coffee grounds pretty much daily at my office job, yet today was somehow different. I don’t know if it was because they were fresh coffee grounds just discarded in a waste basket, or if it was somehow related to the momentary ambiance, but I was taken aback to my childhood days, when I would spend the day in my mother’s downtown Chicago office so she could take me to a free clinic appointment in the city.
I remembered those days, the hours and hours spent sitting on the chairs in the office reception area. Apparently they didn’t make reception room chairs with armrests back in those days, because I remembered how uncomfortable they were. I think at some point during those visits I discovered what the word “boredom” really means. But it wasn’t all bad. Mom and I would usually have lunch in one of the many downtown restaurants, and if I was lucky, we’d take in an afternoon movie at the theatre before going home on the commuter train.
It’s amazing, the memories one can conjure in just a moment, when a sensor trigger is tripped.
