THE SCENT OF BREAD

When I was a little girl, my mother went to the sanatorium with a diagnosis of tuberculosis; she would heal and be discharged in 23 months. My grand parents were hired to run the house and take care of Greg and me. It was 1949, Greg was just 9 and I had turned 5 in August.

This essay is about a person in your life that holds you inside of their inner most circle and you hold them in the same place. It is about an opportunity that happened, perhaps only because of the circumstances.

To understand inner sanctuary, visualize a target with a bulls eye in the center and circles of greater quality as you move in toward the circle. This will give you an idea of what it means to have people placed throughout your circle of friendships and the place most cherished being the center.


I became grandmother's shadow. When she was baking, I was in the kitchen, when she was drinking her morning coffee in bed, I was there, dipping my sugar lumps in her cup and when she was knitting and nodding, I was in her lap. The cloak of her being surrounded me.

From those years until Tom came back into my life in 1998, when ever I was afraid, sad, or needed nurturing, I went back to those times in her lap and waited for my soul to feel her body, hear her humming, and smell the aroma of fresh bread. That was my safe zone. There I could think, relax, take a breathe and they emerge as a roaring lion with a flicking tail and shake my mane; laying aside that starving kitten who didn't have the sense to come in out of the rain. It is the inner most circle; the perfect bulls eye.

Perhaps Tom tiptoed into the perfect center when the two of use played Scrabble on the patio table or went for long walks in the evening and hugged under the water tower. Perhaps the song, Falling into You, sung by Celine Dion, was really written in the early sixties and manifested itself about the time we reconnected in the winter of '98. I had no idea that anyone else could ever get that far inside of me reserved only for a few, not mindfully selected--rather are predetermined to be there; you know the place--it is the one where there are no words.

Today, I am thinking about Julia and how, still, when I am not willing or ready to talk or resolve something, I still go there. I am hopeful all of you have such a place of safety, regardless of who you are and how they are.

It is a universal rule.