In the Village

Tired voices stream across phones perpetually unable to leave their offices. Still, dinner dates are made, drinks planned. Close to home, yes? I follow my patron saint to the French wicker chairs, duck breast, and chocolate torte. I say yes, to refills. We toast to Friday nights, to saving the world, to living the Life. He comes over and tells us to have more chocolate, to come to the Gansevoort because you can sleep when you're dead.

He's right, of course, but right now I feel as though I might as well be dead. I struggle down the crooked Village streets to my stoop.

Still, I visit the restroom, and it smells like Australia. I can't say what it is; the candle says Tabac & Talc, and I don't even know what that means. My education tells me the olfactory sense has a direct line to our memories, but all I know is that the scent puts me at a young age, and in a country I have forever come to love. Something about Australia says home.

I remember lightning storms that played around Byron Bay and made television entertainment obsolete. I remember dolphins, close enough to touch and Nimbin wallabees with their sage curiosity. I remember the way the orphaned koalas would dig their claws into my shoulder, and I loved them instantly. Endless hours, days, months, in the warm, wild waters of the East Coast and the way the currents would still tug at my muscles after I'd gone to sleep. I stood there in the restroom, inhaling Australia, and something in my heart missed it terribly.

But as we walked down West 4th, to our quiet Manhattan homes, New York creeped back into my heart. It nestles its way into my heart, everytime. I slip in under my soft, Manhattan covers, as the cool, concrete scents of the city drift in through my window.

New York currents tug at my body, too, and I have never had a better sleep.