What does the Smell of Warm Concrete Mean to You?

Can a smell truly conjure up a memory? Is it possible to long for a place like you long for a person? What is the essence of an emotion? What does missing something truly mean? Am I living for a past that will never again be? Or hoping for a possible future and a reality that is different than my memory?

Walking downtown a few days ago to pick up my lunch the warm sun was beating down on the concrete of downtown. It smelled like New York in the summer. And a wave of nostalgia rolled over me and I wanted to cry from the passion of it. Cry with missing a life that I adored and a love affair I was involved in with a city. Cry from the jagged way I had to break up with my city just at a point when we had come to an understanding and supreme appreciation for each other. Cry because I didn't get to see another New York fall, didn't get to run the NYC Marathon as a New Yorker, cry because I never have that feeling walking home from work, that this is my dream and I'm living it.

Perhaps if I had spent a few more awful winters in the city my memories would be tainted with bleak thoughts of dirty snow, and cold so sharp it hurts your teeth when you smile and the short days and long dark nights. Perhaps if I had a few more years of making a good salary and yet feeling poor from the effects of living on the money sucking island, transporting myself back and forth from The City to Texas and and living where opportunities abound to do and see and shop I would long for the sunny Texas sky and ease of life here. But I didn't. And I don’t. And now I must life with the ache.