Tag Archives: memory

#scent, Grief, Tears

Scent of a Memory

I have one of those noses. From twenty feet away with my eyes closed I know a diaper needs to be changed, what perfume you are wearing, if the day is wet or dry. This morning, on a short trip to Bainbridge Island, I leaned over my cousin’s porch rail, took a deep breath and immediately knew the blackberries were ripe for picking — the heady scent of hot dirt and perfectly ripened fruit almost knocked me over. And made me immensely sad.

August is blackberry time on the island. Over the last twenty years, if I was lucky enough to make a trip out here when they were ripe, I was put right to work. Manicures and freckles be damned: my cousin and I would pick madly and for hours, wearing long sleeved shirts dripping under the dry, driving sun, usually in her “secret” spot overlooking Puget Sound, sea lions and keening eagles keeping us company. Next, we would haul the overflowing buckets to my Aunt’s house, where we took over her tiny kitchen to make the berries into jam. Under Aunt Marion’s sharp gaze and enduring her dry quips about ladies and purple tongues and unsightly stained fingers we worked like dervishes; spinning between the dark brown cabinets, electric stove and worn linoleum tiles, taking turns monitoring the simmering sugar and berries, keeping the boiling jars and lids in check, cleaning the funnels and spills. There was laughter, sweat and gossip. We drank endless cups of the house coffee, Nescafé.

How much we made, how deeply we sweat, the mess we made in her kitchen was never important; the time together was blessed.

My Aunt died in April. This morning the scent of earth and ripened berries broke my heart in two, renting a new little hole in my chest. I almost skipped going down to check the bushes; I missed her so much, the loss of something and some one I loved so strong. But then I took a long, deep breath of sun ripened earth, brambles and fruit and pushed some happy into that opening instead — I thought of her chuckle as she ribbed me, her face of joy when I made a scone to go with that fresh jam, the approval on her face when we were scrubbed up, scrubbed down and finished.

Girl time. Make some for yourself whatever gender you relate to: breathe in the scent of those moments because someday, that same inhale will bring the scent of a memory — a scent that will stop you in your shoes —  yes. And make you hurt — yes.

But also make you smile when you remember.

This is how we mend.

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Apricot Jam, my cousin’s house, Bainbridge Island, July 2019

 

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Easter, Father, flowers, Hyacinth, Memoir

Love, Delivered.

Funny what starts a trigger. For me, it is hyacinth.

My first: delivered to the back steps of my childhood home on a snowy Connecticut March day, the potted bulb cradled in pink foil tied with a white bow, buds tightly closed on verdant green stalks leaning bravely into the winter wind. Tucked between the stems, a minuscule florist envelope, the card reading From the E. Bunny penned in my father’s funny half-script-half-print, signed off with his signature smiley face adorned with a small squiggle of hair. Oh, Dad. I felt so grown up I thought I would burst.

And a few days later, as the centerpiece on the Easter dinner table, the flowers opened to bundles of lilac blossoms, the fragrance — mingled with lamb, mint jelly, roasted potatoes — imprinted on me forever. My first, of almost forty, potted hyacinth delivered by florists to my door over the next four decades, whether my dining table was in Connecticut, Seattle, San Francisco, or later, Boston.

My father died in March, 2011. I held his hand those final days and rambled on about all the things I could and would remember about him and us, thanked him for so many things, even got a faint smile once or twice. But I forgot the flowers. When Easter came a few weeks later there were lilies on my table. My doorbell didn’t ring. I lost him all over again: it’s the little things that can hurt the most.

Spring is here in Seattle, the bulbs are bursting. Walking a neighbor’s puppy this afternoon we chanced upon a garden flocked with those white, pink, purple spring bulbs. The fragrance staggered me and left me breathless. All those memories firing and triggering and my heart bleeding just a little. Did he realize that eight years after he died I would still half-anticipate the doorbell, a florist delivery person standing on the step holding a foil wrapped pot? That I would miss seeing the lopsided grin of his silly squiggle person on those cards? That just a tiny whiff of the blossom would make me cry? I will never know what made him begin that tradition. I do know that at Easter I miss him the most.

As a parent I often reevaluate before the holidays and think well the kids are grownups now, they can’t possibly care about this tradition anymore. Then I remember his simple gesture, repeated over and over; the pink foil, the little skip of joy in my chest, the smell of a hyacinth bursting from the bulb. How it felt to have a father.

We are never too young, or too grown up, for love to be delivered, in any way.

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 Kingsland Kitchen, Portland, Oregon

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