The smell of toast reminds me of daycare. and of vinyl chairs sticking to the backs of my bare legs. Of seeing dust particles float through the air accented by dusk's rays shining through living room windows. And smelling my mother. Really smelling her, my face pressed into her floral scarf and long wool coat. Nothing had ever felt so good.
In the mornings my dad would burn toast. I would give the unintentional Mom does not burn the toast look and he would reply that He only got burnt toast when he was a kid. He taught me how to scrape toast over the sink in a moment of weakness or sympathy, I'm not sure which. The crumbs would get stuck to my fingertips and I wouldn't brush them off.
Toast also means pre-packaged stale bread. Grandma ate melba toasts and drank more coffee than any stomach should ever have to handle. The smell of toast and coffee, is her, is mini rainbow marshmallows when I was sick as a kid, and is a look, a feeling of Grandma Save Me and she - this stoic woman - would and still does without even knowing.
113
13 years ago
