As I packed my bags and boxes I thought about a recent conversation I had had about how everyone's homes smell different, how we're all immune to the smell we live in.
I sat on my childhood bed and wondered what my new apartment would smell like and if the smell of my old home would change when I left. Would it just smell like my parents? I hoped not, my dad used too much cologne and my mom loved burnt popcorn:
I wondered if I could pin point the smell that would remind me of this place, of growing up.
I wanted to remember old oil and over cooked fried chicken. I wanted to remember how the air was deluded with the scent of pancakes on Saturday and bacon on Sunday's. I wanted to remember 11 scoops of coffee for one pot and how strong it was. It wasn't just about food though.
I would miss wet dog and hair dye, because there was three of us coloring our hair every month.i would miss smoke sinking in through an open window because no one was allowed to smoke in the house.
I would miss the smell of the summer night air on the nights my father can home from driving and we had to help him clean his car because he was exhausted and my sisters and I were wide eyed kids who never ran out of energy.
Most of all I would miss the brand of bar of soap my parents bought as a kid. I would wake up smelling it and then use it myself before bed. It started and ended my days.
I could hear my mother calling me from the living room downstairs. She wanted to know if I had the last box and I was almost tempted to say no so I could linger a little longer.
Home smelt like fried chicken and cheap soap and I knew the stagnant air of my new apartment would just drive me mad.
I went to the bathroom and dug to the very back of the cabinet hoping for a piece of childhood but there was nothing. I sighed and picked up the box and went down stairs.
I wondered if that was the lay time home would ever smell like the pieces of myself I left behind. I wondered how something could smell like too much cologne, burnt popcorn, old oil, fried chicken, strong coffee, wet dog, hair dye, smoke, whatever was in the air the nights my sister and I ran back and forth from our driveway and the kitchen at 2am, and finally cheap soap all at once and how all of those things could make my favorite smell.
I wondered what my new home would smell like and if it would be as much of a weird mix and if it would put a tear in my heart when I left like my last home was doing now. I knew that within the first couple weeks of settling in I would have to come back under the guise of a visit just the breath the memories into my lungs through my nose. I wondered if that would be enough.
