Love has a smell

I am amazed at people who can wear a signature perfume day in and day out despite everything that particular scent has “witnessed.” For the sense of smell is a powerful memory trigger.

It is weird, how certain smells remind me of love. I was cleaning the bathroom last night and I poured Pantene shampoo for glossy hair on the scouring pad, mixed with bleach and Apricot hand wash, and I was filled with nostalgia. I scanned my memory for associations and realized that it smells like, um, love.



Love smells like summer and unripe mangoes in February, and of fabric softener on a friend’s shirt and of the pages of a new book, and of clean sheets. It smells of first rains in May or June, and of Chantilly on your mother’s neck when you kissed her after she died, and of freshly-ironed shirts, and of Easter morning, and of the hint of oil on a tricycle. Love smells like the beach, and the sun, like chlorine on the pool, and pork sinigang, like grilled pork chop, and dust on boxes when you’re moving from one house to another, like the scent wafting when you pass by hamburger stands in the corner, and tears in your eyes. Love smells like new shoes waiting to be worn, like the interior of luxury buses, like vanilla-flavored formula, and of photocopied readings. It smells of thrift shops, and of libraries, and of baby bath, of funeral wreaths, of kisses before hopping on the door of a bus, and of hot rice porridge. It smells, too, of hot-off-the-oven pan-de-sal, of new CDs, and balikbayan boxes.

Love can smell like anything. And when you feel that familiar tug in your heart when you smell something, you’ll know it is love. ###