questa vita

My dad is cooking homemade pasta sauce, and it's filling this house with this fragrant magic. So savory and tangy. And I'm immediately reminded of my grandmother's house on my dad's side, up in Erie. She passed away around Christmas last year, so I'll never get to go there again and smell the exact smell that the pasta sauce reminded me of. But that's what her house often smelled like- homemade pasta sauce. But it always, to me, had a lingering scent of coffee too. I think the smell of  sweet coffee had just seeped into the furniture and the walls and rested there. And something else. I guess her own particular scent. I remember it so well, and I'm so grateful for little things like my dad making dinner to spark memories. Smells always seem to do that. 

I just had a major nostalgia bomb while talking with my friend about when we were in high school. We were in school in different states and at different times, but the stories seemed to be similar...  How we were friends with people from so many different groups that we didn't really understand the "divide" that high school movies usually show. Like, the jocks, nerds, artsy people, etc, etc whatever.. I was friends with all of them. I was the founder of the book club (that lasted for like, one day and consisted of my guy best friend and me), in the chess club (but everyone was. It was one of the biggest clubs we had...and people were just in it to get out of class. We didn't even play chess), art club? I think I was in that, too. But that was genuinely because I liked art. And I was in the National Honor's Society, which was the only club that really met regularly and did activities.  I had my own group of friends who also didn't really fit into one pigeon...