From June 3, 2009 - a time when my traveling was all but over and all I had left were past reflections of what was, and what I learned.

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Isn’t it funny how a flavor can be a smell? Like the sweet taste of scotch on my own breath as I exhale. The flavor invades my nose and I smell... a place. Smells remind us of so much, so vividly of our past.

The smell takes me back to a bar; a random bar on some random summer night in a random city on some random trip. Does it matter where? It doesn’t to me. Who was I with? No one. And that's meaningless.

All that matters is the feeling. That feeling of being able to lose myself in the empty anonymity of being nowhere in particular. To sit at a bar and drink. To be nobody to everyone. To watch the people around me come and go while the ambient music is just a little too loud to be pleasing. The glow of my cell phone in front of me, beckoning me to start a text conversation with someone, or to drag me a little closer back to the reality I’m so far from.

Happy to be far from.

Days long gone.

The time, like all time, was fleeting. But the magic of discovery, and discovering me was vital. Learning what this life has to offer before returning to a trap set once more with the intent of pinning me down, holding me tight, choking me and snapping my neck just for the pleasure of hearing that halting snap.

Now, to play out the details of what remains while still remembering that smell.

And those nights of a different nothing than the nothing of my life.