Daily Prompt: Scent

Once again I find myself slacking in my quest to try to write daily.  When I saw the prompt today, I was inspired which is often the case, but busyness tends to win out.  Not today.

The prompt was Scent and when I read it I was immediately back in the 80’s standing before my mom’s neatly organized dresser spraying an indulgent mist of her Cinnabar on my wrists and neck.  That was her scent and although there were others before it, it is the one I will always associate with her memory. Scents have the power to evoke such feelings like the emotions that I still experience when I smell Cinnabar.

A beautiful creative God endowed us with the wonderful sense of smell!  When we begin to list things we are thankful for, it’s probably not at the top of the list, but can you imagine life without it?  Think of the smell of rain in the air, before the first drop makes its way to the thirsty earth, the perfume of the rose in your garden, the spicy aroma of a pumpkin pie cooking or the acrid smell of something burning and we all love the sweet smell of newborn babies (which is soon forgotten with the smell of diapers).

We all have so many memories tied to smells.  My grandfather, Poppy, had a distinct scent that I can only describe as smelling just like Poppy; no one else smelled the same and when I think of him and crawling up in his lap to get snuggled and possibly scratched by his whiskers, I can remember the wonderful “Poppy” smell.  I’m sure we all have our own personal scent; some probably more memorable than others.

Have you ever noticed that another person’s home has a distinct smell and they smell like it?  The thing I never could figure out was what my own smelled like and was it good?  I’ve had kids come to stay for sleepovers and they open their little suitcases or bags and boom, their house smell flows right out.

My sense of smell has always been very good, seemingly better than average.  I have read this could be due to my sinus/allergy issues.   This can be good and bad depending on the circumstances.  Due to my allergies, some smells have become headache inducing nuisances and unfortunately I can whiff out a mothball scent from a mile away.   My kids always knew about my heightened sense of smell and knew they needn’t try to hide certain things from Mama because in my case “the nose knows”.

So, maybe as we are complaining about some of those not so nice smells, we should remember all of the yummy, pleasant ones and be thankful.  I’ve heard it said that of the five senses, smell is the one with the best memory.  I know one whiff can send you back years in a second to a certain place and time where some memories are clear and vivid.