June's If

If smells replaced words, which scents would represent the different phases of your life? What smells suddenly bring back those old memories?

Whenever I make pasta, the sauce would always remind me of Ramadhan and my mother making her out-of-this-world chili con carne(sp?). Add to that the smell of garlic bread in the oven, and I'm suddenly back in my mother's kitchen. She would ask me to set the table while I would gaze longingly at the huge kuali of chili. Her chili is rare if it's not Ramadhan, but it's a sure fire bet that my brother would come home for buka puasa the night she makes chili. And he would wipe the kuali clean with his toasted bread. Whenever I smell the tomato sauce and baked beans, with a hint of curry powder, I would see myself at the round table we had, holding out my mother's treasured milky white Corelle bowl, the one with a gold scalloped edge, practicing my please and thank yous as I ask for seconds.

Coppertone's Sunblock. Its smell reminds me of summers in Ann Arbor. When it's so hot you just want to camp out in front of the fridge. When the long days are filled with scoopfuls of ice cream, strawberries and watermelons whizzed in the blender and goopy banana smoothies filling your cheeks as you stroll in the gloriously air-conditioned mall. Days of lying on hardwood floors with the screen door slid all the way back, watching Days of Our Lives or TRL. Days of attempting to jog through the neighborhood, only to quit after five minutes and completing the route at a more relaxing, leisurely pace. Jostling your way through crowds of tourists at the annual Art Fair, holding on tight to your recent purchase of a beaded bracelet. Sitting on the sidelines with your journal on your lap while you wait for the boys to finish playing soccer, the sun slowly going down down behind the U of M's Hospital.

English rose. The smell of my mother. She has talcum powders, room sprays, body lotions, moisturizers, all scented rose, all gifts from her daughters, all hardly used. But that's the smell that lingers over her dressing table. I was browsing through a shelf of lotions at a discount store recently and the one I bought was scented English Rose because I want to smell like my mother.

And yet. She always smells of Oil of Olay. She's been using it forever, and I, too, have started using it. And whenever I put it on my face, my palms brushing my nose as I massage the lotion onto my forehead, I'll think of her. I'll think of her kissing me goodnight when I was a child, I'll think of her getting ready for a wedding, I'll think of her slipping into her bed ready to go to sleep. I think of her happy.

Paco Rabanne and cigarettes. That's my dad. In that combination is how I remember him. He would come home from work, bend down to me and offer his cheek for a kiss, and I would smell his aftershave, his cigarettes, and feel the stubbles of his beard as my lips graze his cheeks. Once, a friend with the unfortunate affliction of psoriasis bought a scalp medication to control his dandruff, and it smelled exactly like Paco Rabanne. I sniffed and was instantly home in Kuantan, lying on my stomach on the cool tile floor looking up at my dad as he strides in from work, his blue Ford a wriggling blur behind him. I don't think my dad uses the same aftershave anymore. But then, it's been awhile since I've kissed him.

All Calvin Klein's perfume? Bad memories of bad ex-boyfriends with bad taste. Best if it's forgotten.

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