Chicken soup

Today I was up at the crack of dawn making chicken soup from scratch.

The smell of it followed me all day. My fingers like boiled carrots. Like I'd bathed in broth this morning. I splashed this fragrance through every corridor I walked.

It smelled not like my mother or grandmother — like me, in a place. Not the home of my childhood. Not my grandmother's house (certainly not in her later years). I can't quite place it.

Good for the soul nonetheless.

Maybe the smell is the smell of my house. Maybe my daughter will someday try to place a smell in her childhood, to pin it to the day her mother made chicken soup from scratch.