The Smell of Crayons

So I was cleaning through a pile of old things in my room the other day when I made a special discovery. My old crayon box. I don't know if this is something that every kid in the world had at one point or if I'm the only one, but I had a box of crayons that I kept and would always use it to draw things. The second I opened it, I remembered the smell. It just has this unmistakable crayon smell that probably only happens when they're stored in a box like that. Hundreds of colors like cerulean, apricot, or my very favorite, vivid tangerine (it's like neon orange!). My favorite thing as a kid was to draw maps. Not just any kind, usually all sorts. I drew maps of fantasy worlds, some of our house, some of mario-land, or maybe of the US.

Making maps is still one of my favorite things, although I don't use crayons anymore. I use computer software. I like thinking about what a map tells you. I hope that I can continue making maps as I get older, and turn it into a hobby. At CMU I took a class called Mapping Urbanism that was probably my favorite class that I ever took. We made maps to show things like where all the tourists were, or where new development is taking place, or the history the city's growth.

My crayon box triggered all of these thoughts. I probably never thought of that crayon box as being very significant to me before I rediscovered it, but it seems that I have an attachment to it. It's not every day that a smell is what is most memorable.

PS- this post goes out to ppoon for his encouragement for me to keep writing
PPS- anybody else have a favorite crayon color?