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The crepe that changed my life.

(post, Nathan Lyon)

    Life is very visceral.  Those crazy synapses.  Smells which remind us of past memories.  How wonderful this nose of mine. 
    The other day a coworker asked me a very unique question.  She asked, 'if you could relive a moment in time, relive a touch or smell or perhaps something you viewed ... what might that be?'  The smell of moist dirt in my grandfather's garden, picking vine-ripened tomatoes back in Virginia.  Second was catching fresh fish with my niece off the pier in North Carolina. The smell of salt-water in the air, scales on my fingers, and the squishing of sand between my toes.  Sun-burned skin.  I thought back to my own childhood. The Shenandoah Mountains and my great-grandmother's farm.  The smell of grilling chicken which hours before were running about the coop.  Coconut cake and hay from the barn.  The tastes, the smells - all amazing, but somewhat pale in comparison to Paris in late fall.
   I was backpacking solo in Europe for six months.  A present to myself for completing my under grad, yet knowing that more education was to follow.  Eating chocolate in Bruges, drinking Guinness in Dublin, espresso in Florence ... all incredible experiences but it was the Musee Rodin in Paris that takes top billing.
   Armed with a warm latte in one hand and a freshly wrapped banana-nutella crepe in the other, I entered the courtyard of the Musee Rodin.  It was a crisp late fall afternoon and the dried leaves which remained un-gathered danced about the cobblestone at my feet.  Under a thick blanket of gray clouds I took a seat on a cold wrought iron bench in front of The Gates of Hell.  The smell and taste of the hazelnut chocolate, warm banana ... the latte foam on my lips.  The cool wind on my face.  The late fall afternoon, colorless, with the sound and smell of decaying leaves in the air.  So still, and so perfect.
   I hope to go back someday.  Not to relive that moment which I know
Is impossible ... but because, well - because that crepe was so damn good. 

Nathan Lyon