The girls and I haven’t written in a long time. And there has been no comments when we have written. The only two people who regularly responded here have passed away.
But
I can’t seem to quite give up on our little blog that no one reads.
There is so much good stuff in the back pages.
From this point on I’ll write as though this is a writing journal. If someone reads, cool. If not, well, no big deal.
So here goes.
After years of nurturing a little orange tree grown from a 6-inch twig, I HAVE orange blossoms. The lemon has yielded fruit and the lime tree has 6 or 7 limes. But the orange trees (I have three of them) have been so slow-growing.
And now this!
The blossoms are beautiful, with a stripe of pink on the fragile petals. And in Florida, back in the day, you could drive past huge groves, all in blossom, and the smell was out of this world.
I had a friend who couldn’t smell at all (I think it was because of abuse). One day when she was stoned, she rode on the back of a motorcycle down a dirt road in town. She was hit by . . . what? What was happening? Wave after wave of a taste in the air. As the two made a turn she saw the groves, acres of orange trees, all in bloom. She realized then she was experiencing her first (and last) smell ever.
I love that.
Those kinds of descriptions, those kinds of incidents, help readers know where they are, physically in your novel.
What smell do you remember? What something changed the way you look orange trees or pizzas or fresh almonds?
Throwing Up Words 
I love this blog. I’m not sure that posting a comment here will validate your efforts, but perhaps at least confirm that someone enjoys them.
The scent that sticks with me the most is the smell of silage in the winter months at the dairies near my home. I will drive through the fog on an early morning and the scent will hang in the air with the fog, curl into my nostrils and send me back to 1985. My kids hate the smell – understandably, most people find it a bit foul – but for me it represents so many memories. Working on the farm with my dad, following friends home from school dances, Portuguese-themed dinners at the SES Hall, and the dual pride-shame of being a country kid. All of it crawls into my bones when the odor hits my nose on a January morning. So for me, my scent is more about seeing the world that has passed by, than it is about seeing things differently. I guess I need a new smell.
You’ve got readers out here. I tried leaving a comment on the blog site but it wouldn’t let me.
Bruce
Sent from my iPad
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I feel the same way about my blog (joeaveragewriter.blogspot.com). I am actually working on a poem related to the smell of petrichor and the memories it brings.
I read your blog! I just haven’t taken the time to respond every time.
Jealous that you’ve been able to grown orange and lemon trees. My lemon tree recently got scale and I didn’t notice until it became intense. I’ve been having a hard time getting rid of the little beasts organically so I might have to turn to a stronger poison. I miss the scent of lemon blossoms in the spring in my office. (It goes outside in the summer though.) I don’t want to lose the tree as it was a gift from my son four years ago. So, for me, it’s absence of that scent in the house. In the garden I have a mock orange bush which has the orange blossom scent, but it’s so old and wimpy with only a few leaves, I’m going to have to cut it down. So citrus scents are disappearing from my life right now. Those scents brought back memories of when I lived in Gibraltar and ventured into Spain where lemon and olive groves bloomed in the spring.
I love you all and love reading everything the three of you share. I usually read on my phone and can’t remember my login information to comment. But whatever you decide for this space, thank you for the time and love you put into teaching and sharing and writing and inspiring. you guys are my heroes. ❤ also I'm really sad about the friends who've passed away. much love to you.
Happy to have just found your blog. Looking forward to talking about books for kids. http://anabarseries.blogspot.com
I wish I could send you the peach tree and the avocado tree that just voluntarily came up in my garden. I brought the avocado tree inside and it is flourishing. However, it will be limited by the ceiling and then when it reaches that point, I suppose I’ll have to take it outside and it will suffer from winter kill. I wish I could find someone who wanted the peach tree. It would probably do quite well here. Even though your readers don’ t respond doesn’t mean they are non-existent.