Junior (high. And Disney.)

Have you ever smelled a certain scent and it just transported you? Today I walked into the GAP at south center and smelled Heaven or maybe it was Grass? Magically I was walking the halls of Leslie Middle School and memories of squirting that tonic on my backpack so boys would smell it when I walked past (you don't have to tell me: I already know how awesome I am.) started swirling through my adult head. And for a spilt second I thought I heard Boyz to Men going into the water and maybe receiving threatening notes from Manzo whom i injured in gym class while wearing a pair of men's GAP boxer shorts as actual shorts.
I was at the GAP a lot in junior high.
Then while I was smiling it suddenly seemed so far away. I got a weird feeling in my stomach. Why? Couldn't really put my finger on it; sort of still can't, but I have a dreamlike sense it has to do with life changing as it promises to. What a lifetime ago yet one whiff can you send you right back to a bad hair cut and innocence.
I'm typing this while Pearson is playing Disney junior on the computer or as she calls it Minnie.com and I desperately don't want her to grow up. It just seized me like a heart attack; some day this little girl will walk into a place, smell something she knows like the inside of her own heart and realize she is not a child anymore. I know that day will come for her. But for this moment I'm basking in the little things.
Like today when she asked me if Africa was across the street from Maple Valley.
Mulling over the fluidity of life and the vaporous evidence of it's changing...