By the time I turned eighteen, my memory of childhood was less about events and more about scent.
I could navigate the corridors of my past through smell alone.
The sharp tang of diesel fumes that clung to my mother’s neon vest, the bleach-soaked floor of our small apartment kitchen, the sour, almost living odor of trash bags stacked behind the dumpster. These scents marked time for me, each layer telling the story of the days I spent trailing behind my mother, a woman who rose before dawn to climb onto the back of a garbage…
