So I can post opening paragraphs for the chapters of the book I'll never get around to writing, and you can tell me whether they suck, and i can do the same for you, peppered with what will probably be destructive criticism?

Yup.

Essentially, yes. I think somebody was concerned about making the header too long. But I guess that tattoo thing is an essay.

Memory drabble:

The baby’s crying, and I grab some crayons and start drawing. Her eyes get wide and she forgets the tears as the image takes shape.

Opa used to draw for me. In his hands, card stock and paper fasteners could become a puppet. Old calendars might make a collage.

If he pushed his sleeves up, I could see the scar where the number had been removed. He’d studied to be a lawyer in Vienna. The letterhead from his many failed attempts at entrepreneurship is a ready supply of drawing paper. I drew him a pigeon, and he colored it pink.

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This is an interesting format to work in. With the word limit, I have to really think about which details are neccesary. There was another one I started, but I realized I just had too much to say, and it couldn't fit into 100 words, ever. It might become something longer, though, if I have time to write it.

I find it so interesting that so many of the memory triggers are smell. Is it because we're less aware of our use of that sense, that lets us be blindsided by memory? Is it because it is so strong subconsciously?

I chose deliberately not to use a smell trigger, but on reflection, I feel like I could have fleshed it out better. Like how I put my hand on the dog's ribcage to feel his heat and fur and life in his breathing. Or how I listen, back turned, to the pace of my husband's breath.

But yeah, 100 words not a lot.

I'm also trying to do another sense one, less of a downer. But I'm kinda in downer mode at the moment.

Allyson, that's it in a nutshell, except that people possibly differ on the meaning of destructive criticism.

Liese, I've been hearing all my life that smell is the most powerful and the most evocative of the senses. I think it's the most vagrant, as well, but that's just me.

Yeah, deb. I find it compelling. Makes me wonder about the rest of my brain, and what it's doing with all that smell processing of whichI remain unaware.

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Tongue red, teeth pink. And a little plastic-wrapped ball of fiery doom. Hold it between your teeth to let your tongue recover from the heat. Then let it explode in the back of your mouth to get past the hot part to the sweet. Crrunch! The sound of victory reverberates in your head as you bite through the nuclear part to the bit where it tastes like candy.

The other kids would buy two candy bars with their dollar. Me? A bag full of atomic fireballs. Fifty, at two cents a pop. It would last the whole week of camp.

Oh, man, yes. Hard hot candy. Ours were a cinnamon thing, and there were very hard hot spicy peppermints as well. For me, it brings back long trips as a kid.

I absolutely love catching up in this thread.

And smell is, to me as well, probably the strongest memory-trigger. I was sitting once in a bus, and suddenly found myself thinking non-stop about a workshop I attended in highschool, and the man who ran it (who was wonderful, and I liked him lots, and haven't been in touch with for years). It took me some time to even ask myself why am I remembering it all so vividly on that bus drive, until I finally realized that the man who was sitting in front of me was using the combination of the same aftershave and the same brand of cigarettes as the man whom I kept remembering, and the unique combination of scents made him jump into my brain.

OK. This was a painful one to write.

Eucalyptus

There's a scent on the autumn wind: eucalyptus, sharp, fresh and clean.

They say it's good stuff, kills fleas, whatnot. People buy the leaves, the oil, warding off the bloodsuckers.

But for me, eucalyptus is the bottom of a gorge off Highway One, Marin County in September, thirty years ago. Far above me is the crumbled edge of the road, where our car fell. Behind me, the wrecked car, the reek of smoking metal, overheated rubber. Under me, the ground littered with eucalyptus buttons. The world is full of people screaming.

Eucalyptus is a dead child in my arms.

Oh my. If, as I assume, this is based in reality, I'm so sorry.