More specifically, taco beef. It smells so appetizing, and when I smell it cooking, it takes me back.

I remember my mother cooking meat for our tacos -we eat them like burritos, but she calls them tacos despite my reaserch on Mexican cuisine, which i find annoying and endearing- and grating cheese in the kitchen as the dusk makes the outside just barely dark enough to know night is coming— that sliver between the day and night. The warm, fresh smell of rain and cosy humidity of the summer mixed with lilacs that always were overgrown over our gate to the front drifts in through the open window. In the distance, a bird chirps; I never knew the type but it always makes me remember and feel like the memories I have are real, but just out of reach, and like Cotten candy, melt away just when you start to really _feel _it, leaving a burst of colour on your tongue and a sweet feeling in your mouth. My sister would be dancing along to some song, Adele or Jack Johnson, behind Mom in the kitchen, in the little spot she called the dance spot, aka the kitchen. The songs, even though they’re not exactly new, invigorating top new style, are homey in a kinda way that makes my heart hurt every time I hear them and relieve the memories. I would be hiding behind the island and sneaking the cheese off the plate mom had put there. The dogs would be running about in the chaos. Then Mom would ask me to run and get Dad for dinner. I’d open the screen door (I can hear it now) and patter down the old steps of the covered back deck. Our yard was small, but nice. A huge tree sat in one corner, in another, Dad’s office where he worked from home. Beside the tree was a shed, and beside that a walkway to the gate. Connecting all those to the house are board walks. I would dash across one to the office and tell dad dinner was ready. We’ve moved now, but these memories will be with me wherever I go.