more about smell

I can remember the smell of most people I have loved. Smell is important to me, for some reason. I always associate people with a smell—whether it is the smell of their person, or their home, or their pet, in some cases, or the food they often eat, in other cases. With celebrities, or people I don’t really know but have only seen pictures of, I still wonder about their smell. Michelle Pfeiffer, I’m quite sure, smells really good, and Gwyneth Paltrow does not. I can’t explain it. It’s just a thing I do.

And then there are people who bathe in their perfume. I am not a fan of that method of application. Perfume should be subtle. I shouldn’t be able to smell you unless I am very close to you. The receptionist at my workplace, for instance, smells really good, but only from a distance. And that’s about all that I like about her.

On the flip side, a bad smell, particularly bad breath, is one of the worst things for me to have to endure. My nose is pretty sensitive. I could never be in a relationship with someone whose smell I found offensive.

I guess the first person I ever loved was my mother. With your family, you tend to take the good with the bad, so when they smell badly you excuse it as temporary. I still like the way my mother smells. I will always recognize it. The first of my peers that I ever became very attached to was my first (well, almost first) college roommate. I remember she had a kind of perfumey and hairspray sort of smell. It wasn’t my favorite, but I loved her anyway. Then there was my apartment neighbor, whose smell I always associate with hand soap and Biolage shampoo. It was bliss to get my nose into her plentiful head of hair. My Mexican roommate's is the smell I miss the most, I think. Hers was Eternity perfume. I have since caught snatches of it and the scent takes me back in an instant, but no one and no bottle quite smells the way she did. A--- just smelled clean, like laundry soap and dryer sheets. I can’t keep those memories in a bottle because laundry smell is upon me too often. Amy, however, still smells like Gain dryer sheets, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to use Gain in my own laundry because I want that smell to stay hers. And then of course there’s MJ, whose memory is most recent in my mind, who smelled like Bath & Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar. I cannot walk into one of those stores and sniff it. It’s still too much for me. I would make myself close to her and soak it up, if I could.

Speaking of MJ, she came to church with her sister on Sunday, and since their parents were out of town, they sat with us, which I welcomed, as did my nieces. She is still a favorite, even if she made me a preference. She sat next to me during the meeting, with her sister on the other side of her, and I have to admit I didn’t hear a whole lot of what was coming from the pulpit. We whispered, probably too much, and I was very aware of the touch of her arm against mine. She has such nice skin.