Hilda has it all. She’s 42, mother of bubbly two-year-old Todd, and a professor of intellectual property law, where she has just made a bundle—her share in an inheritance suit deploying ‘The Eustace Diamond Defense’—which persuaded the judge to allow Mrs. Mandolini to keep the family diamonds her late husband, olive oil magnate Giuseppe Mandolini, had lavished upon her. Besides these personal and professional triumphs, she has just won a weight-lifting trophy at her fitness club, for executing a 190-pound …
Tag: Forest
“Ember Opens the Door” * Poetry * Brook Bhagat
Long past bedtime nighttime mountain winter air sparkles ice inside her nose with the inbreath deep, deep, free, they’re asleep, they’re all asleep. Ember closes the door soft behind her and smells the moon: pines, minty, peppery pines, their outlines blurring green together into black. Off the stoop in nightgown and coat, she shifts the kitty backpack of graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate. Socks, underpants, Jenny doll. Boots crush footprints in hard snow, slow then fast, making for the woods for …
“Mindfulness” * A Poem of Breath * Holly Darragh-Hickey
I draw it in. One—even—breath. Deeper —past the habitual asphyxiation Burning at the base of my throat. It’s a draught to empty— Oh, to swallow deep forests and crisp, alpine air! It circulates, slackening musculature there— Opening up the body. That radiating breath! One chaining easily, from part to part— Alacrity to replace, to fill up every cell. It begins as a zephyr— Parting teeth at first, Fluid, over the coils of my windpipe, Riding the current into the pulse …
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Olfactory Report 3: The lure, the cure, the smells of the forest * Catherine Haley Epstein
Several years ago I made a scent about forgetting: forgetting your ego and the glorious connection we feel to people and things when we do this. Most scent is evocative and reminds us of things past. How about scents that explore the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? What does forgetting smell like? My conclusion: forgetting smells like the forest. I drew the connection after years of reading the G-rated, PG-rated then grizzly versions of fairy tales, where everything transformative happens …