You may have read that smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory.

I knew that long before I ever saw those words in print.

The smell of the iris that bloomed amid a round patch of green alongside the driveway of my childhood home.  One whiff of it would start me longing for outside, hungry for bare feet and cold water from the garden hose and dirt under my fingernails.  I remember how impossible it was to keep my little mind focused on school, on fractions and parts of speech, while the luxurious purple smell clung tenaciously to the inside of my nose.   Today, when that glorious scent tickles my olfactory nerve, my mind wanders from to-do lists and research papers, not fractions and parts of speech.  And interestingly enough, my love of outside isn’t the only thing that hasn’t changed since my days as an antsy kid.