Common Scents

 

 

It’s amazing how easily a scent can take you to days of your past. Even more fascinating is their ability to instantly affect the senses. Essential oils awaken, calm and soothe; they are “the good scents.”  What about the common scents? I’ve been pregnant 3 times and each time, I experienced a different type of morning sickness triggered by an odor. During my first pregnancy I didn’t experience much morning sickness but anything peach scented made me immediately queasy. The second pregnancy was the worst! I suffered morning sickness for 6 months... it seemed as though EVERYTHING made me sick! Riding in the car was even a challenge. I couldn’t stand the smell of fried foods, even the natural odor of my husband would send me into a gagging spell. I couldn’t stand scented body lotions, oils, perfumes or cologne. The final pregnancy was pretty much the same as the first with the exception of scents not having an effect on me. To this day certain scents that made me queasy during pregnancy will make me queasy now. It’s as though my brain was rewired to believe that those scents are triggers to heave. There are times that I will smell pears and instantly be transported to my grandmother Liller Lee’s kitchen watching as she prepared preserves. Other times I will catch a whiff of a perfume and the undertones will remind me of how it smelt to hug my grandmother Julia Mae. I live for those common scents now -they both passed away years ago. The scent of magnolia makes me reflect on dirt road walks with my mother. Our neighbor had an enormous magnolia tree and as a child I could have sworn that it almost touched the sky. Oh how I Iove to smell the gentle scent of magnolia in the breeze. The smell of ponds and lakes, bedding freshwater fish reminds me long summer days spent fishing with my father. Even the smell of dirt makes my heart smile; that scent reminds me of my happiest day spent digging pits in the yard with my very first bestfriend –my brother, Chaun.