I remember seeing Robin Williams once, at the Seattle Art Museum. I was at the café, looking out the window at the street in one of those seats that is for people who are alone, just a stool and a counter. I heard a voice behind me and realized it was familiar. Familiar, here in Seattle? I lived in the middle of the country, so this stool in Seattle was shielded by many miles from Familiar. I listened more, snagging the last pine nut on my salad plate, and realized the voice was Robin Williams. Only then did I turn and look, and there he was, all Robin Williamsy, surrounded by shopping bags and chatting up the waitress.
The same summer he died I lost my sense of smell. Crazy, it never came back after a bad cold in June. I didn’t even know that could happen. Up until then, my sense of smell was my superpower. I could smell propane gas that only highly sensitive equipment could detect. Sometimes my sense of smell would cause me problems, like when I thought the raw hamburger smelled spoiled and my husband didn’t. But I always thought of my sense of smell as mine, and I did think of it as a superpower. I loved walking outside and smelling rain before it fell, getting a whiff of lilac that came from around the edge of the garage when the wind was right, the smell of a baby’s hair just after a bath.
I miss them both, my superpower and Robin Williams. They were more fragile than I could have imagined.
Susan Fuchtman 