Childhood Scents (Haibun)

 

I knew I was going to be a smoker eventually. When I was very young, sitting in the back seat of my father's car, I couldn't wait to have him light that first cigarette. The sweet scent of tobacco at just the first puff. (No worries I quit smoking a while ago)

 

Chevy Impala

red leather seats

Sweet Caporal

 

In the summer my mother was so busy hairdressing we would go swimming at the local pool.  The river was reserved ONLY when adults were around.  The pool was not the same, opening your eyes under water was such a habit in lakes and rivers but boy did it burn the eyes in the pool and the smell was so strong. It smelled like GrandMaman's laundry room when she had to soak sheets for a long time to get them white.

blue water,

cement floor

laundry scents

 

When I was ten, we started camping, mostly close by weekends in Vermont but for vacation, we would head out every year to Old Orchard, Maine. The owner of a huge camp ground was friends with my parents and less than a mile from the ocean. I keep thinking of lobsters and steamed clams dipped in melted butter eating at the picnic table.

 

pine needles,

oil lantern heats the tent

salt water air.

GrandMaman

 

GrandMaman had a huge vegetable garden not counting the flower beds.   August until end of September was canning and pickling time for all her produce. The kitchen was always busy. I still don`t know how she managed to keep borders at her house, cook, clean, garden and still be a midwife.  She had to stay busy to support herself since GrandPapa passed when I was 6.

hot stove and veggies

chez GrandMaman

vinegar stings

She often got a phone call late in the evening and I would often cry and plead with her not to go. She would wash, put baby powder as her choice of a midwife’s cologne...makes sense now that I think about it. She then put on her white uniform, white nylons and white “sensible” shoes.

Ivory soap

traces of pressed uniform,

baby powder lingers

My mother was a hairstylist and I grew up with our living room converted into a beauty salon. Still today, the lull of a hair dryer makes me sleepy, the smell of hair spray, permanent and hair dyes brings me back to the 1960's. I still ask my hairdresser now and then if I can sweep the floor; brings me back to my youth and my chores.

shampoo, peroxide

hair spray, conditioners

hair dryer lulls


Colombe (Bette) Daudelin

 

Of course when my mom would get ready to go out I knew she was going to be out late when she put on her make up, curling those eyelashes, painting her lips, fluffed her natural curly hair with her fingers...but that last touch...Youth Dew scent, that blue bottle...always put on too much...she loved perfumes!

 

Youth Dew Estee Lauder

 

lips tattoo my cheeks

softness of her creamed hands,

Youth Dew idles

 

(c) Tournesol '14-08-06

Submitted for: Carpe Diem Ghost Writer 20 The Scent of Poetry