Reverie

I walked into the bathroom down the hall; it's a special bathroom- I think our office used to be some kind of domestic suite- there's a large tub at the end and then a toilet and then a sink 15 feet away at the other end of the room. An esoteric stack of magazines sits like a mold on the edge of the tub. It will vanish one day and then slowly grow back as visitors return through the week. I sometimes leave my Economist behind. I often get halfway through articles with catchy titles and realize that I've read them before. I read the economic charts in the back as if I understand them. I have this hope that one day, all will be clear to me regarding current account deficits and money supply rates. So I walked into the bathroom and was struck by a smell- a good smell- the smell of some kind of cleanser that triggered a happy flicker in my hippocampus- I was immediately walking into not a palace bathroom formerly used by presidential concubines (a presumption) but the bathroom of one of my old girlfriends. My mind toyed with the pleasant memory of happier, younger days. Of course, happier younger days could refer to 8 months ago when I could, in less than 48 seconds, leave my apartment and purchase a bottle of pinot noir and a brick of goat cheese. Or a case of Coors and some Twizzlers. But I was brought back to times much more remote in time and space; I contemplated how relationships at particular moments formulate your version of your own identity in the past. So I stood there, in a room where Saddam Hussein may have taken a crap, and I felt an amazing longing for someone who had once been a significant part of my life. All triggered by the odor of some cleaning product. But I just couldn't remember which girlfriend it was.