Nosing Around

Scents and smells always bring back very strong memories for me. The scent of pineapples and coconuts remind me of childhood summers spent at Puerto Azul; the sulphuric smell of boiled eggs conjures up pictures of that rickety wooden bridge that we used to drive over on the way to school. On gray and rainy afternoons, the ground and roads here give off the same damp, dank smell that the grounds and roads in my birth place used to give off...funny how that is considering the fact that I was born halfway across the world.

We were a cologne-toting, perfume-using family. Joy was my Mom's trademark scent and so was White Linen; Halston was my Dad's, as was Polo. Us girls doused ourselves with De Ne Nes and Nenuco. I love how by simply sniffing bottles of these colognes and perfumes, I could go back to places long left behind, and times long gone. Scents to me are like time machines that allow me to traverse decades.

And true to form, decades later, I find myself still using bottled scents to define who I am at that time in my life, and to mark moments in my life. I'm no olfaction expert or perfume connoisseur; all I am is emotionally responsive to certain scents. My daughter's baby cologne is Baby Bench. Practically speaking, she really doesn't need any scent-enhancers because she is just delicious-smelling the way she is. But still I use a dab or two on her every so often so that on days when I miss her when she's gone off to back-pack in Tibet, I can pick up a bottle of Baby Bench and revisit these times when we would sit in front of my dresser together, arguing about why she cannot wear sandals in March.

When my husband and I first started dating, he was a cologne-virgin. He relied on his after-shave for that freshly-showered scent. His first full bottle of cologne was from my Mom, ironically, which she gave to him during our first Christmas together. I wonder how my Mom knew what to pick for him... because that scent is totally him. I love how that scent smells on him. Almost 10 years of marriage later, I still melt when he comes to kiss me and I get a whiff of Eternity.

It's come full circle, this obsession (another free Calvin Klein endorsement) of mine with scent. And I don't believe it will ever stop evolving and revolving... from Joy to Eternity.