I wonder what my breath smells like.

Sometimes when I have oatmeal for breakfast, my mouth feels pasty.  It can also be a little yucky after too much tea too, but that’s just how it feels.  I don’t know what it smells like when I’m talking and it reaches out to someone else’s nose.

Following a meeting with someone today and being…pretty close, I wondered.  I didn’t smell anything, but I don’t normal worry about how my breath smells.  I assume it doesn’t smell bad.

It’s such a strange thing to think about how people feel you, smell you.  I sometimes wonder what it’s like to kiss me.  I mean, I know what it is like to kiss my husband.  I know what his lips feel like, the stubble on his face.  I could pick him out blindfolded, but what do my lips feel like.  Not when I touch them to put on lip balm, when they are kissing.

I will never know and I’m a little fascinated by that.  It’s a part of me, an interaction that I can not experience myself, but I give to others.  I know my daughter’s hand, what it feels like in mine, but what does she feel when I hold her hand?  My hands get sort of sweaty and so do hers, so I wonder, if I notice, does she notice?

I don’t think about my breath.  I brush my teeth.  I even floss now and I assume my breath smells…like breath or whatever I just ate.  But wouldn’t it be a better experience for others if my breath was some yummy wintergreen magic every time I opened my mouth?

That’s a lot of mints.

Maybe what makes the way we speak, kiss, touch, others so unique, something all our own, is that it’s unstudied.  We don’t plan it.  We do the things that make us feel good and then got out into the world.  Our smell, our feel, it’s just an extension of how we live.  I like mints sometimes, usually when I dress up and want to have fairy princess breath, but day to day mint popping does not sound fun.  Hopefully my toothpaste or garlic breath is working for the people in my life.

I’ll never know what they smell, that hands cupped over your mouth and then breathe thing never works for me. Hopefully if it’s super swampy someone will offer me a mint.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  Morning Breath.

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