Page 539 - Demo

Post-Pandemic533a strong perfume smell on a used book we purchased, I%u2019d set it in front of that heater with the pages fanned. As long as Lynn wasn%u2019t directly exposed to a book, minor odors usually were problematic, and our whole-house ventilation sysyem took care of them. For us, all this was routine.In trying to avoid as many artificial ingredients as possible, we carefully read labels in the grocery store and selected the most natural products. We seldom purchased clothing that wasn%u2019t 100% untreated cotton. The rare fabric exception was nylon, which is surprisingly quite inert. We learned that nylon gives up any odors it picks up after a short time in a hot clothes dryer %u2014 or by hanging outdoors in the sun. Polyester and acrylic, on the other hand, stubbornly retain any odors they absorb.We certainly knew that we lived quite differently from most people %u2014 but only if we consciously thought about it. Most of the time, we didn%u2019t. We just lived the same way we had been for most of our adult lives. Having a healthy house was an absolute requirement for Lynn%u2019s health and well being, but because we already had one, it rarely came up. On the other hand, if our house were to suddenly burn down, or get destroyed by a tornado, we knew for certain there wouldn%u2019t be another on the market for us to purchase and move into. But by being resourceful, and having dealt with so many challenging situations in the past, we were confident we%u2019d be able to take any situation in stride and figure something out. What we hadn%u2019t yet figured out was what would happen if just one of us died. We had always been a complete unit %u2014 one dependent on the other. In all the years we%u2019d been together, we%u2019d not required others to fulfill us. So, because we believed we were following our correct path through life, we were convinced everything would work out for us in a way designed just for us.%u2022%u2022%u2022%u2022%u2022In the spring of 2023, I had emailed a woman at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science about the possibly of donating some of my photographs to them. We%u2019d communicated a number