Scent Memories
There are lots of interesting, exciting, and incredibly scary things going on in the world, and I have benign opinions on them all. At one point I would’ve shared those opinions with you, but — and I’m choosing to view this as progress rather than laziness — I now know I have nothing to add. I can tell you young people are scared of guns, and climate change, and Trump, and if we’re doing the right thing with the right people at the right time, and if we’re doing enough, and if we’re worthy, and if we’re already wasting our lives away. But surely none of that is surprising.
Admittedly, I am not easily interested these days. Well, that’s not totally true… perhaps I’m just particularly interested in only one thing at a time. I venture out on occasional sojourns, but I am withdrawn, mostly, from the outside world. Admittedly, I am probably somewhat depressed. Then again, admittedly, When I am I not?
But when I’m sad and down I can always count on my first love to call me up: stories. I love all of them, from top to bottom, from beginning to middle to end and the smallest components between, the adverbs and ands and senses.
I just read a wonderful new book called The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan. A play on Sherlock and Holmes, their Sherlock is inadvertently an opium addict. His poppy-fueled trips send him spiraling back through his past and remind me of being jolted back in time by a scent or sight.
Like, I’ll taste something, something so specific and bizarre, yet not unpleasant, and I’ll suddenly be six in the kitchen again, being fed spoonfuls of acidophilus from the fridge. Or I’ll smell fresh rubber and be in the great room at my USM pre-school summer camp, asking my 19-year-old counselor if she has any wiggly teeth.
When I was a kid, lots of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my cousin who was a year older. I always thought she was so cool. We’d rip open these bags of clothes and this sweet, homey smell would drift out. I remember loving it. I remember wanting to put the clothes on right away, wanting to be enveloped by the scent. I looked up to her greatly, and would have happily let her clothes consume me if only I could be like her. I’ve always imagined this a universal experience. Don’t we all have the family friend whose home is so pungent with nostalgia it’s almost choking?
An embarrassing story: one of my first girlfriends slept over in sophomore year of high school. We stayed up far too late, a combination of jittery nerves and excited talking. I spent much of the next day in bed, nursing my sleepy hangover. I kept smelling the pillowcase she’d slept on. Damn, I thought, she smells good. Weeks later I was changing my sheets and happened to catch a whiff of them. It was the same scent — it had been my scent all along! Good to know at least we didn’t stink.
In a thrift store in Chicago this summer I bought a sweater. It was a soft, acrylic textile, with long mohair-like yarn. It was an army-forest-green, Fair Isle print. It reminded me of a well-dressed gay man I met in London last year whom I’ve also been attempting to emulate ever since.
After buying it, I promptly lost it, but by chance the sweater found its way back to me. When it was returned it smelled of my cousin and of my family home. Sweet but settled. Not overpowering. Confident. It pleased me to imagine who might have worn this sweater before I did, to take the scent as an admission of love for the object. How can you not love something so undeniably yours?
But then again, I’m a little obsessed with linens these days. I moved to NYC last month, and since I’m unemployed I have plenty of time to convince myself we have bed bugs.
I’m not really sure what I’m doing here, but I’m not sure what I’d be doing anywhere else. Here, at least, I have a few friends, public transit, and the idea of Broadway shows. I don’t know if our apartment has a discernible scent yet. I don’t know if it ever will, with the three of us living fairly separate lives. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
