The unusual fact that one can feel both emotions at the same time actually baffles me. It's quite amazing that so very much can be endured by the body, itself. Human anatomy is a magnificent and alluring thing, is it not?
My brain is totally and completely melted down to the core. SAT practice has actually gotten to the best of me this weekend, and missing about four total days of school over the period of two weeks has not really helped my health or mental well-being. Somehow, I am able to sit here in my over-sized flannel and a cup of oolong tea and write for once. Oh, pourqoui est-ce que les weekends getting shorter as the days go by?
Today, I unearthed an old Magic Tree House book and got so giddy inside that I had to plop on my bed and read a few chapters. I remember Jack and Annie. I remember the numerous collections I owned, stashed somewhere in the depths of my attic. About half an hour later, the entire book was read in one sitting, and I had a smile on my face. Tigers at Twilight- # 19...I fanned the book's pages and caught a whiff of that old, musky book-like smell. It then hit me, like a softball bat whacked in slow-motion across my face. The smell of the book's golden pages brought back actual vivid memories of my old apartment in Edison, of the times I would gather up my fleece blanket in the winter and read with my best friend from my childhood.
As I began to reminisce these days, a faint memory appeared in my mind. It was my freshman Biology teacher's lecture...I was taking notes in an old composition book. I was writing "smell is the human sense that can revoke clear memories." I could feel my old friend sitting beside me, her dark hair in pig-tails on her head, the pink and warm blanket we used as a tent hung low over our heads as we would read these old paperbacks. The memory remained there, forever engraved in my mind.
So, what else could I do but test it out? I rummaged my bathroom closet until I managed to scrounge up a bottle of perfume, what with a few drops in it. I used the sweet scent throughout last year, and to my amazement, I could feel the memories coming back, slowly, one by one. A gym locker room...another whiff...re-runs of That 70s Show after school...whiff...a friend's house appearing in my mind. It all came to me like an old black-and-white movie. I tried again with a sandalwood and lavender candle, with chocolate chip cookies.
From that moment on, I realized that scent-memory is the optimum way to forever keep a place or feeling close to your heart. It will never, ever escape you.
The Four Most Recognized Scents in the World
- Coffee
- Peanut butter
- Vicks Vapo-Rub
- Chocolate
I love freshly mowed grass. Rain. Aromatic, pungent curry. Acetone from blue nail-polish. The buttered perfection of popcorn. Sweet-smelling, crisp, clean sheets. The aroma of an early morning, dew upon the leaves of an oak-tree glistening in the sunshine, the smell of it all.
So difficult to describe, yet so incredibly simple to just feel travelling through your body and mind.
I call that utter perfection.
