after losing my sense of taste and smell from Covid.

It’s been three months since my Covid test came back positive.

In an attempt to write about the experience of having Coronavirus, I have been reviewing my journals. And dear goodness, there were some dark moments in there.

I don’t think I am quite ready to go back into that darkness,

but I can talk about one aspect of Covid which is still affecting me daily:

The loss of my sense of taste and smell.

I started to get a little bit of my taste and smell back after about eight weeks. It was wonderful to be able to even sort of taste anything after having zero ability to taste (or smell) for so long. So I stopped worrying so much about when I would regain the full spectrum of my senses.

Then last week I burned a pot of soup on the stove really badly. Of course one shouldn’t ever walk away from something bubbling on the stove, but I think it was due to the fact that I still can’t smell things that are burning that I let it go for so long.

So now I have returned to asking friends (and the internet) about how to get my smell back. All the way back.

And several studies say that you can re-train your brain to smell using these four scents: eucalyptus, rose, clove and lemon.

My mom has also been doing this with me and an expert told her to put these four scents (via oils) onto cotton and then to put them in jars and smell them four times a day.

Picture what you’re smelling each time.

Conjure a vision of the scent as you put your nose in a jar.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

I really can’t tell if it’s working. There are still plenty of things I can’t smell.

But in an attempt to really go with the process of my “smell training,” I have been remembering places that I associate with each of these smells, which has been a fun way to armchair travel in this time of being mostly at home.

And here is where these four smells are taking me.

EUCALYPTUS >>> The Camino in Spain

Do you remember when we walked under the eucalyptus trees?

We were walking in a world that was strangely bright that day.

The heat a bit relentless, but 

we had plenty of water and bodies that love the sun.

I had never seen eucalyptus growing wild. 

We smelled it before we saw it. 

I had no idea they grew so tall.

Thin long figures

with their blue-gray leaves

kind of like aspens in how they twinkle in the wind

and make sunlight splash and glitter.

We had miles still to go

but struggled to move on from their mesmerizing scent

and continue on 

The Way

taking with us the memory of the smell –

so that always 

when I smell eucalyptus oil,

I remember

Spain and sun

and a dusty road

and stopping to wonder at trees with friends.

ROSE >>> Castle Gardens and City Parks in Scotland

Of course I had seen roses before we moved to Scotland.

I had smelled the roses of anniversaries and lovers’ offerings.

I had seen a rose bush in a neighbor’s yard and even an arch of roses in a sunken garden.

But not until I walked in Scotland did I see 

so many roses,

So carefully tended for

so long or

so many varieties.

In castle gardens and in town parks and in front of row houses.

In the walled garden near the River Don and in the city park where the kids played.

So. Many. Roses.

When we walked in gardens and parks together, 

always I was behind, stopping to stick

my face in the bushes

to wonder if a red-striped rose smells different from

a small white tea rose

or a bright orange pink rose.

However far behind I am,

I will still pause

to extend even further the distance between myself and

those who don’t have time to stop and

greet the roses with their noses.

CLOVE >>> My Mama’s House 

The smell of cloves is only familiar to me when mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg into apple pie spice.

It might not make sense to some, but for me the progression is
cloves > apple pie spice > Mama’s apple pie. 

Around the holidays, my mom used to make several pies.

Pies to take to my grandparents’ house.

Pies that lasted all through Thanksgiving weekend. 

A slice at midnight and another for breakfast.

But before the holiday arrived,

a pie just out of the oven made the whole house smell heavenly.

And we sat impatiently in the agony of wondering

when can we cut it open and eat it?

LEMON >>> Tuscany, Italy (Fattoria del Colle)

The first kitchen gadget I purchased for myself was a wooden lemon reamer from a fancy kitchen shop. 

I don’t remember cutting into fresh lemons as a child, so maybe the first time I chose a lemon from the market 

and took it home to my little apartment

to cut it in half 

was to make a simple lemon vinaigrette.

I learned the art of coaxing out all the juice and pulp and even the seeds with my new tool,

then swirling it all into a puddle of olive oil with a wire whisk.

Lemon juice stings a little,

pleasantly sharp in my nostrils,

but painful to the little spot on my finger 

where I was careless with a knife.

A pile of empty lemon halves on the counter,

cut and squeezed out

often means T has made me my favorite drink,

a long loved cocktail,

whiskey sour,

always more tart than sweet.

But a whole lemon, not yet cut, 

reminds me of Tuscany where

the lemon trees grew outside my room

greeting me with their round yellow faces swinging from green branches.

How do they stay suspended in the air that way?

Every time I went in or out of the ancient villa,

I paused to look and listen.

Bright hellos in the morning

and gentle welcomes in the afternoon

and a fragrant farewell when it was time to drive away.

Even now I picture them there,

not anxious for the traveler’s return but

adorning the estate and being beautiful for no one.

The post Smells Lost and Found appeared first on Alison Chino.

Yesterday I told a story about being far from home.

Like many others, I have been closely following the stories Syrian refugees who are far from home for much harder reasons than I am.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to be heading to London today to attend an event with World Vision that will help tell the stories of those who are far from home this winter.

Here’s one such story.

I am anxious to come back and share what I learn, so watch this space.

PS. I’m super grateful to the YHA at St Paul’s for giving me a place to sleep while I’m in London! 

The post Far From Home appeared first on Alison Chino.

Y’all, the sun will set today at 4:07pm.

The weather this time of year in Scotland hurts my feelings. Many days we don’t see the sun at all but just varying shades of gray. Or grey.

Then the gray fades to black before you know it.

Now that we have been through two winters in Aberdeen, I have learned that it takes a lot more than a couple of walks to get me through the next three to four months.

(Like a few good bottles of whisky.)

But getting outside helps.

A lot.

Even getting outside in the rain.

So in November I’m going to head for the beach. Maybe at sunset and maybe at other times.

This is my view of the beach from where I start walking. So I thought it might be fun to take this exact picture every time I go to the beach in November and then compare them. The tide is always changing, as is the color of the sea and the shade of the clouds. Who knows? There might even be a blue sky or two in the mix!

Do you have plans for getting outside when the weather gets colder? We used to always plan a winter camping trip in Arkansas, but I don’t think I have the nerve to do it in Scotland without our pop up camper + space heaters!

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#CarveAHeart

As a little something different this year, Simon and I carved hearts into our pumpkins in partnership with World Vision.

Because Halloween is a night of “scary fun,” for my kiddos, it’s an easy time to talk about what it’s like for children all over the world to be in fear.

Simon is really my only little pumpkin these days.

Like most years, he draws things that are a little too complicated to carve, so we have simplify a bit when we transfer the design to our pumpkin.

I remember when we first started carving pumpkins at our house, the kids were so little that I kind of did everything. It’s kind of great to be able to hand over more of this project these days.

Especially the digging of the guts out of the pumpkin.

We’re all ready for Halloween now with our happy heart pumpkins! 

If you’re in the UK, you can text HEART to 70060 to donate 5GBP to help children who are living in fear. And if you’re in London, there is a Refugee Prayer Service tomorrow (Halloween) night at Christ Church Spitalfields at 5:30pm.

And if you want to #CarveAHeart with your kiddos, you can download resources from World Vision that will help you talk with your own kids about the needs of kids around the world.

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Scotland in September started out in the sunshine.

I had a visit from a very dear friend.

Kelly and I have been friends since we were in elementary school and she has visited me everywhere I have ever lived. She is the sort of friend with whom you can pick up like you have never been apart, which is to say that every moment with her is a gift of comforting familiarity and being absolutely loved.

September 1.

On the first of September we wandered in Edinburgh together under the bluest of blue skies.

I showed her all my favorite spots, stopping in shops and museums and for tea along the way.

September 5.

Next we welcomed our friends Jamey and Ashley, who got the whirlwind tour of Aberdeen and the Shire, including a walk around one of our favorite castles, Drum Castle.

The thistles were still in bloom in early September.

September 7.

On my birthday I walked to a new international women’s gathering and it was so warm outside that I took my jacket off. Unwittingly I dropped it along the way, and someone hung it up for me on the side of the road. I have dropped many scarves, sweaters, gloves and other various things while walking around towns and this was the first time in retracing my steps that I found something I’d dropped. It was like a sweet little birthday surprise.

September 9.

On my Mama’s birthday, I went to the beach to walk under gray skies.

I found this little heart-shaped rock that I’ve kept with me all month long and I pray for her when I touch it inside my pocket.

September 10.

The day after my mom’s birthday is my friend Jermaine’s birthday.

It was a gorgeous day in Aberdeen.

Taido was out of town, so I went by myself to watch the sun set on the beach and be thankful for my friend Jermaine, who is halfway around the world at the moment.

It seemed like this week in September marked the last of the long summer nights. The sunsets started to drop off quickly after this week and soon it started to be dark at dinner time again.

September 12.

A couple days later I was back at the beach with another visiting friend and we could hardly walk for the wind.

It’s crazy to me how this same spot can seem like a completely different world depending on the season, but also in the same week.

September 14.

Walking back to town in mid-September and meeting more women from all over the world.

September 15.

And picking blackberries. A lot.

September 17.

The next bright blue day, I was back at the beach.

At different times of day, the tides draw different patterns in the sand.

No one else in my family really likes going down to Aberdeen Beach as much as I do, so I’ve been stealing away for an hour here and there this month.

At some point, I thought to myself, I might never live only five minutes away from a beach again in my life. So I should go more often. Like whenever I think about it.

And so I have.

I steal away for thirty minutes after I drop one of the kids at a friend’s house.

September 19.

One Saturday, none of the kids wanted to go for a walk. That’s always the case actually, but usually we make them.

But on this particular (very gorgeous) Saturday, we let the kids stay home. They bargained that they would clean the house while Taido and I were gone on a walk. We stayed out most of the afternoon and logged ten miles on these mountain bike trails nearby. I was exhausted from trying to keep up with Taido, but it was all kinds of good stuff.

We found a stone circle in the heather fields.

This photo is just for my niece, Grace, who was constantly wishing we could perform some kind of Outlander ritual at a stone circle while she visited this summer. Serious faces + Hands on Stones = Outlander Scene. (I’ve actually not ever read or seen Outlander, so I have no idea what I’m talking about.)

And bonus of the day: We came home to a clean house.

The leaves started to change around this time.

September 20.

Sunday walking to church. (MP with a new bob.)

September 23.

Back at the beach a few days later.

I found a new shell/bead for my dreads.

September 24.

Walking in my neighborhood.

September 25.

Back at the beach. Only this time a little further north.

This is the mouth of the River Don, and I usually walk on the south side of the Don, but you can also walk on the north side where the sand dunes rise up in front of the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club.

I climbed up the dunes and was sitting in the grass when I met a lady who was a bit lost. She spoke not a word of English but somehow, she communicated that she was lost.

We walked back together through these grasses above the sea until we reached the road and she seemed to recognize where she was. We walked together for half an hour communicating only in hand signals.

September 26.

This photo is from my favorite walk of the whole month, a walk from Tarland that got it’s own post already.

September 27.

The leaves were really starting to change along the Don River on the last Sunday in September.

I walked to church alone that day.

September 28.

The next day I walked to town to meet Taido for his birthday.

The sunset on his birthday was positively gorgeous.

September 29.

The next day I went back to the beach to say goodbye to September days of walking.  I thought it would be my last trip to the beach in September. But it turned out that I went back the next night.

September 30.

On the last day of September. I walked on the beach boardwalk with my friend Joy. In the almost dark, we took turns sharing the joys and sorrows of the past couple of months since we’d seen each other. Once it was pitch dark and we could no longer see, we sat on a bench facing the North Sea with thermos cups of tea. We could just make out the ships in the distance from their lights on the water. While we sat there talking, a blood red moon started rising out of the sea. We gasped. We could not stop looking and being in awe at the giant light coming up and spilling out onto the water. We kept talking and drinking tea (and eating my favorite new Italian biscuits) and coming back to the moon. What a gift it was. The light got higher and brighter and the reflection lengthened over the water, a shimmering path of light now. Stretching out before us. Calling to us. We stayed watching it for as long as we could stand the shivers and well after the tea had gone cold.

For most of September, I walked alone on paths in and around Aberdeen. I sang songs and memorized words and prayed and listened to podcasts and wondered at trees and rocks and sea. But in His mercy, God gave me the gift of beginning and ending this beautiful month alongside dear friends. A dear, longtime friend from my childhood and a dear, new-this-season friend from my current home.

There is a picture there somehow of the journey I am on in this faraway country, and I am painting it by marking the hour of almost every day that I get outside and move my feet along the path. If I did not walk, if I did not remember to be grateful for the walk, and to mark it in some way, I am afraid that I might miss out on seeing God’s grace washing over my days the way the surf comes up over my rainboots.

The post Chasing Daylight in Scotland in September appeared first on Alison Chino.

The first year we were in Scotland I was a little puzzled to discover that the schools have a two week holiday in October. It seems like a strange time of year to be out of school and the weather is often less than ideal.

But now we have embraced this yearly hold over from a time when school kids were needed to bring in the potato harvest and we spend our “Tattie Holidays” finding new trails to walk.

Our first year we went to the Lake District and even in the rain, we were so smitten that we have been back three more times!

Then last year we went to the Isle of Skye. And oh-my-goodness, was it ever LOVELY!

This year we are heading to the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, a far corner of this country that we have yet to discover.

I expect there will be lots of tea and hot cocoa inside the cottage we have rented with our friends, but we’re also packing our waterproofs in the hopes of blazing a few new trails.

So those walks will make up my Chasing Daylight challenge for October. I’m looking forward to discovering them, and then sharing them here!

Happy October, friends!

PS If you’re playing along and #ChasingDaylight in your part of the world, where are you hoping to walk/bike/swim/run in October?

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Hi friends,

A couple of weeks ago we sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing in church, a song which I have long loved.

It has always been my sister’s favorite hymn, and lately it is Mary Polly’s as well.

The phrase “prone to wander” always grabs me, but this time around I held to the line “Tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

I’ve had a couple of major fails lately that suggest that I need more than just a little tune up in my heart.

I love to remember that God has the power to reach inside my heart and pull the strings around so that they sing grace instead of bitterness.

So here’s a new poster download with that sweet reminder.

I read a great quote this week about grace:

Grace will take you places hustling can’t. 

(from Brene Brown’s new book, Rising Strong, and she’s actually quoting Elizabeth Gilbert)

So cheers to singing grace today!

XO

Alison

PS We’re loving Sara Groves’ version of this hymn around our house.

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Just popping in today with a little poster of a verse I painted to send to Cole at camp this week.

I mentioned last Friday that Ephesians 3:20 is the verse I’m praying for our family and for our world right now, and I always find it helpful to have a little visual reminder.

You can download the scanned copy of this verse and print it off yourself if you want to pray along with me.

XO

Alison

P.S. When my Mama Polly died this past summer and I couldn’t go to the funeral, I bought a new set of watercolors and went to the beach instead. (She was an artist!) I’ve been having loads of fun playing with them, mostly using them in my journals and to highlight things I am writing. (But I would love to learn more about landscape painting!) I’m enjoying a new way to be creative + play! And fun fact: Cultivating creativity and cultivating play are two of Brene Brown’s “guideposts to whole-hearted living.” In other words, we NEED more of it in our lives!

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Happy September, y’all!

I wrote “Birthday Walk” on my challenge this month because in addition to the fact that it is my birthday month, September is a month I celebrate the births of many people that I love a lot, including my mama, my hubs, my sis-in-law and some sweet friends.

The weather turned cold here last week and I was starting to worry that all the sunshine was gone forever.

Then I remembered that I started #ChasingDaylight to make myself get outside during the daylight no matter what it’s like out there.

So Imma try to keep doing that. I’m hoping for sun, but I’ll take cloudy skies without rain, thank you very much.

I’m going to get out there and walk on all those days as my own little one-woman celebration of life. And I’m going to spend some of those walking minutes thanking God for the gift of these sweet folks in my life.

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I received an email from a reader referencing an old post I wrote about hearing Brene Brown talk about fear.

I wrote it when I was getting ready to move overseas and I was feeling very afraid.

It was so good for me to re-read it that I decided to paint these words again to remind myself that when I am feeling afraid, I can still be brave.

Because two years into living in Scotland, guess what?

I’m still afraid.

I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of another winter. I’m afraid of the heartache of living so far from those I love. I’m afraid of what’s next. I’m afraid of not knowing what’s next. I’m afraid of the heartbreak I will have over leaving new folks I love. I’m afraid of what’s next for my children. I’m afraid of watching their hearts break.

I’m still very afraid.

And just like two years ago, I’m still taking life just one little bit at a time.

Index card lists with small dreams for everyday sacred days I want to have with my people here.

Loving big even though I know it will keep breaking my heart.

I’m trying to be brave as I begin Year 3 of our Life in Scotland.

And just in case you are needing a little reminder too, you can actually download the scanned version of this painting.

Hang it on your wall as a little present from me.

Imperfect courage.

Smeared ink and all.

XO

Alison

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