avad

grandmothers perfume 11/26/2002
what is the scent of Nostalgia? Of memory tinged with longing and wonder?
these days I think it is my grandmother's perfume. A scent I can no longer imagine....though I can picture the bottle perfectly,(which I liked to hold as a child) can nearly feel the coolness of the glass, rub the facets of the shape. I can see the color of the perfume, feel the weight distribution change as the liquid sloshed back and forth in its container in my warm little girl hand. In my mind I can feel the slight resistance of the cap to turning, then its click of unsticking and agreeable undoing.In my mind I see the perfectly designed threaded unscrewing of metal and glass.. and then it is open, the scent particles floating out like unseen fairies to tickle my nose and beckon me closer...for one good real sniff.

But I cannot smell it. A few neurons in my brain whisper conspiratorally with eachother, offering the vaguest shadow memory teases of sweet and musk....but others boo them down from doubtful corners of my mind.."Nah, that's not IT, not it really..there's more to it."

And there I am lost in a daydream trying to smell my grandmother's perfume. Up on mental tiptoe, straining for that which is on the top, top shelf today...and coming up short.

Since I live in this strange age of the future I consult the internet, my own court wizard. Internet, I say, find me my grandmother's perfume. press search.

A stream of link-paths emerge and I browse their brief descriptions. I click and shoot down the rabbithole. Suddenly I am within some modern discount perfume shop staring at an item with the name of my grandmother's perfume. But it is a 'modernized' plastic topped spray cologne bottle so hideous to my eyes that I'm sure I would not be able to smell memory there. How could those mystical fairies live in such a bottle? I don't think so. I check a few more paths...and all lead to such 'updated' bottles.

Internet, I cry, this is not IT!!! Bring me my grandmother's perfume!

My wizard knows what to do. In silence he takes my hand and brings me to a room. The name on the door is one I am familiar with, a room I have avoided because it seemed such a time and energy drainer, preying on the consumerist addictions of the masses. I shudder. But I understand.

This is the Lost and Found. A very magical place. A very dangerous place. Enter at your own risk. Here you will find your grandmother's perfume.

I walk into ebay.

I type in my grandmother's perfume. press search.

In an instant I am staring at the exact bottle from my memory. It is a strange moment. A magical moment. A dangerous moment.

With this new power in my hands I browse my memory for other objects that have vaporized in time. And I search for them. And I find them. I want them back. I want it all back! I can recreate my grandmother's bathroom in its entirety! I can recreate my childhood bedroom! I can line my shelves with all my childhood toys! I can summon all objects lost back to me!! I can recreate the past, build tributes, altars, museum like buildings! I can touch and feel and smell what before I could only try to remember!! My grandmother's coin purse. The stuffed mechanical toy poodle in the photo my dad took so long ago!

And then I stop.

There is something not right about this. I feel suspended, hovering, weightless. The hands on all clocks have become cartoonlike. Clock? I want to see my grandmother's cuckoo clock, not the modern cheap plastic 'functional' one I picked up at Wal-Mart.

But wait. WAIT. there are whispers.

What is this longing? What is wrong? Why does this feel so WRONG?

I try to tune into the whispers like a radio.