SO – here I am, in a whirlwind of endings and beginnings and I start smelling . . . cotton candy? It's maybe two weeks ago. Things are already on the verge of boiling over. I've had to postpone a workshop, we're juggling four separate baby showers, LumensGate is heading for the showers and the cat insists on pooping on my carpet. I'm getting into my car to head for the office and I smell. . . cotton candy. At least that's the closest I can come to identifying it. I get in to my car and drive to the office, the odor gradually fading. I let it go, thinking I must have picked up a whiff of something in the neighborhood.
This smell comes up again, pretty much every day. Fleeting and elusive, it appears at the edges of my perception and then flits away. I begin to wonder if I have a tumor pressing on a sensitive part of my brain, causing olfactory hallucinations.
Yesterday, I am searching for my good luck coin (a gift from my beloved wife) in my monk's bag. I begin to smell the cotton candy again, more strongly now. I wonder if it is somehow connected to spirits telling me where to look for the coin. I begin to dig things out of the bag, turn it upside-down and shake. A fountain of white powder pours out, followed by a fluttering packet. No – not heroin. It's a package of EmerganC®, and electrolyte mix that has come open in my bag. Is it connected to the coin? Well, yes, in a way. It was given to me by a woman who was at the conference where I last saw the coin. . . .
Ah well!
