Day 21: Peppermint & Pipe Tobacco
The Brain; A networking of complexities. I have always found it fascinating (and cruel) how Humans are not born knowing everything about their internal functioning. It sounds crazy to me that we are born not knowing who (or what for that matter) we are. But all it does it support the theory of the existence of the Divine Architect. You are born without any say what so ever as to when, where or to whom and you have to learn who you are as you navigate the game. It’s almost like life is nothing but 7 billion different movies that God can watch all at once, directing each scene as He sees fit. But what a wonder to share brain anatomy yet each one carries the marks of our individuality. The ability to be an individual all the way from the choice of your clothes to your brain wiring is a gift (no matter how you were born). How can we just be our bodies if we have ability to disagree with one another. I feed her something —she doesn’t like it—I feel sick. We go through something traumatic—I try to make her let it go—she embeds it so deep in my subconscious that I involuntarily alter my personality. However one of our more harmonious experiences together is how she allows me to be transported through time by just a whiff of something from so long ago.
“The Parent Trap” taught me to value my ability to take olfactory photographs and reels. Just today I was triggered twice. As soon as I awoke I was in the basement of my old church. Something in my room brought about the slightest aroma of Sister Ometress’s fried chicken. I didn’t cook any the night before and I hadn’t even fully come to myself for the day. Somehow some of those same particles found themselves in my Milwaukee bedroom, 300 miles away with years in between. But not even just the setting, a familiar peace and comfort. Fried chicken after church; one of my favorites. A cultural treasure.
I recall a time I was stopped (quite literally) in my tracks. I was running food to tables at Lady of the House (RIP—we lost a real one —#fuckcovid) and I was trying to get back to Expo when there were two ladies having dinner at table 31. Over the smell of all the food in the air, it only took one whiff — Mom? And just like that it’s 2003. Life is the best it’s ever been, domestic bliss is restored, my parents are married and my mom has ben resurrected. I knew what she had on but I had to ask her. “Donna Karan Be Delicious”.. Thought so.
Or, smelling my first love on another man. This definitely did not work in my favor. I took it as a “sign” that I should date the nigga. (Coincidentally they also had the same name) Somehow without even thinking about it fully, I found a correlation between the unrelated and dove in with hope that that same sweetness would be rendered back into my life (SILLY). Or, how I could never use Cocoa-Mango shea butter because it was Deja’s signature scent in our early 20s. I didn’t realize just how engraving and painful those years were until sticking my nose in the jar. Suddenly a movie short of toxic/abusive relationships with men and just early 20s fuck-shit in general all came rushing back in a fraction of a second.
Unlike, Halle Parker, I don’t seek after smells with the intention to recognize it later but the potential in the moment is recognized. I take samples of the notes and capture the associated feeling and seal them in a jar, and place them on the self. It’s a treat when a smell memory resurfaces. One of those involuntary marvels about us that can bring about great comfort and distress, euphoria and trauma. But the most fascinating thing to me is the programming of it all. Everything I am, organically coded in biological 1s and 0s. And when I depart, it goes too. I wonder about which parts remain immortal with me and which parts dies. What do I get to take with me when I go and what simply gets—“shut off”.
There is so much joy to be found in the little things. When it hits: smile from you to you because you just had to be there. A hug from Granny. Discovering pancakes for the first time. Fire cracker smoke. The exhaust from a school bus. Cinnamon sugar donuts at the cider mill and the air is just the right amount of cold.
