The Moon Tastes of Soup

And I am very young. And this is the first thing I remember. Maybe it isn't really, but I think it is. Or maybe I have decided it is. Something very exciting is going to happen and I have been allowed to stay up late to watch it. It is so late it is early. I don’t understand. But the world behind the big orange sun-flowered curtains is so dark, darker than I’ve ever known. There is a fox in the garden; I have never seen one before. Not for real. Something important is going to happen. They are going to land men on the moon. I am going to have a thing I have never had before. It is called tomato soup. I can hear a wooden spoon scraping in a pan. And a smell that is the most beautiful smell in the world.

‘You will remember this forever.’

And I will.

I am given a bowl.

I can still see the blue rings of the bowl and the deep rich orange of the soup. And I can still smell the deep opulent smell of it. And it is the best thing I have ever tasted. There is a lurking excitement. And I never want this memory to ever end.

And it won’t.
And nearly fifty years later, the blaze of a Saturn 5, or one small step, or just a view of the moon will always bring the clumsy banging of a wooden spoon and the taste of tomato soup.