Scents and Scents-ability

My apologies to Jane Austen! I borrowed her famous novel title to introduce today's topic: smell. Smell (our olfactory system) is the sense most closely linked to memory. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when we smell an old perfume, for example, we will associate that scent with a certain time (or person) in our lives.

Lately, I have been quite inspired by my sojourns through our lovely paseoes. All sorts of glorious plants have been releasing their essences, calling attention to themselves. Jasmine! Roses! Lavender! The bees and I are enjoying every minute of the wafting treasure trove. Of course, on the other side of the sniff spectrum, there is the trash can where all the dog walkers throw out their animal's excrement. I call that scent, "Eau de Poop." Admittedly, I am more of a fall and winter person who loves her hibernation. This year's profuse blossoms, however, (thanks to our abundance of rain!) have almost made me a convert to the glories of spring.

Today I am going to wax nostalgic and indulge in remembering some scents of bygone days -- even eras, if you will. For example, in the old days when I went to school, before xeroxes were prevalent, "dittos" were the gold standard of handouts. A ditto was a blurry, purple mess, but it had that just out of the glue factory smell. One could almost get high off an English worksheet. (Oh boy, homework!) I also dearly miss my prehistoric blue Smith Corona typewriter and its inky metallic aroma. That typewriter and I spent many long nights together in term paper hell! When the perfume, Obsession by Calvin Klein first came out, it was such a big hit one could smell it everywhere ("Ah, the smell of it!" was the infamous, erotic campaign slogan).

Cities bring with them a sensory overload. In my San Francisco college days, I remember the famous Cable Cars and their Barbary Coast burnt iron smell. Fisherman's Wharf with its open stalls for selling freshly caught crabs (need I say more?) and salty, cold ocean breezes. What college student couldn't smell a keg of beer from a mile away?

New York was a cornucopia of sights and smells for me. Some days in summer the smell of garbage on the street was...atrocious, to say the least. Also, before a summer rain storm the air would be heavy with the scent of rain about to burst. I lived in an apartment building that could have represented the United Nations. On my floor alone, I could smell Chinese, French, Indian and many unknown (scary!) foods at any given time. Not to mention the fish factory outside my bedroom window.

Everyone lives for that new car smell! Wine, ground coffee, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (already mentioned in a previous post as my diet nemesis), the cheap colognes of girlhood (i.e. Charlie, Wind Song, Jean Nate), mom's cooking, our first dog's breath...yes, the list (good and bad!) goes on and on. It is easy to forget what a true pleasure, and a privilege this complex sense of ours is! In Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, one of the main characters, Emily, has died, and as Emily looks back at her life she recounts the little things that she didn't appreciate while alive. She cites warm baths, food and coffee and says, "Do human beings realize life while they live it --every, every minute?"

Both my parents have passed away. My mother was allergic to perfume, so I cannot associate her with a scent in that way, unfortunately. She loved the smell of freshly cut grass and her favorite flower was a peony, however, and so I think of her always when I smell a newly mowed lawn or bury my nose in a soft peony center. My father used Old Spice shaving lotion...the list goes on and on. Food for thought: What legacy of scent will we leave behind for our children and/or loved ones?

A few years ago I was hospitalized for several days. Hospitals are here to make us better, but my senses were so keen then, that the medicinal smells were making me sick to my stomach. Then one day a physical therapist came to help me and she was wearing a lovely perfume. I remember thanking her over and over for the relief her scent brought me! Now whenever a friend of mine has to have an extended stay in a hospital (fortunately, that rarely happens) I advise them to bring along a favorite sachet.

Even right now, sitting at my dining room table, a gentle breeze is treating my olfactory system to a delightful whiff of orange blossoms. My orange tree is full of the delicious, fragrant flowers! Surely, spring is nature's way of saying "I love you, people!"

Next time I will write about our sense of hearing. I say this in a kind way, because my son has been practicing his electric guitar the whole time I have been writing this blog!

What Women Want From Men

The other day while spring cleaning, I stumbled on a little book a friend had given me a few years ago titled, "Porn For Women." Nice title, eh? It is actually a tongue in cheek look at what women really want from men (and according to the authors, a lot of time it is NOT just hanky panky).

For example, the book has young, attractive men (some without shirts, some fully clothed) posing next to various sayings such as, "You look stressed. Let me make you some tea and we can talk about it. Chamomile OK?" One photo shows a shirtless dude vacuuming with these words, "I love a clean house." One of my favorites shows a young man holding a luscious slice of chocolate cake with this statement, "Have another piece of cake. I don't like you looking so thin." So is this really porn for women?

After much discussion with my women friends, having a man who likes to shop, cook, clean and be sensitive to ALL our needs is definitely porn. Looks have nothing to do with it! My husband will diligently clean, fix things around the house, do laundry, etc. He is the breadwinner, but not the cook. When I hear stories from other women about how their husbands make them a meal, any meal at all, my mouth waters. I would DIE to have home cooked food waiting for me after a long day of work (or a long day of play, for that matter). Is "Porn for Women" saying that women want men who act like wives?

I have always thought though, that the differences between the sexes are what make life interesting, albeit complicated and frustrating at times. But one thing I have learned over the years is how important it is to ask for what I want/need in a polite way. Men don't read minds; sometimes all we need to do is speak up. I have another book called "Mama Gena's Book of Womanly Arts" (yes, that is the title!) and Mama Gena is a definite advocate of gentle assertiveness. Her premise is that women are divine goddesses and men WANT to give them all they desire--with the one caveat that men sometimes need a little prompting. Mama Gena believes that life should be pleasurable, and that too often we stifle our needs because we have been taught to be good girls.

Bad girls unite!

I will close with this little story. One time a coworker was bragging about how he showered his wife with flowers, dinner, etc. for her birthday. I told him how impressed I was with his display of affection. As a joke, I added, "She's trained you well." Boy, oh, boy, did this man blow up at me! His face got red and he said angrily, "Men don't need to be trained! We are not idiots!" Or something like that...at any rate, he took my comment as a deep offense. After that nasty exchange, I kept my distance from this guy. A few years later, I heard that he had gotten a divorce. Go figure. Perhaps all his gifts did not disguise a bad temper.

Perhaps what the book "Porn For Women" is advocating is how acts of kindness and tenderness can go a long way in a relationship. Certainly, that goes both ways, too! What man would want to be married to a drop-dead, gorgeous woman who was mean spirited and self-centered? (Okay, maybe a few men wouldn't mind...)

Indeed, porn is in the eye of the beholder.

Easter...My Jesus Story

I love Easter, even though I am not religious. I love all the little goodies that go with this holiday -- egg hunts, pictures of bunnies and chicks, chocolate bunnies, bunny stuffed animals...you get the idea. But what is wrong with this picture? Is this See's Candies laden holiday really more about spring and little animal babies, perhaps? Today I want to share a personal story. It did not happen on Easter, specifically, but it is about the main character in the Easter story: this is how I first learned about Jesus.

I was a typical junior high school kid growing up in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Sonny and Cher, Love American Style and That Girl were my favorite TV shows. Like many middle schoolers, I was awkward, acne prone, and shy. My best childhood girlfriend had "dumped" me to be with a group of "cool" girls who were more popular with the boys. Sigh!

Meanwhile, one of my older brothers (I'll call him Dan to protect the innocent) had joined the Army. I missed him terribly, as both of my brothers had flown the coop and I, the baby in the family, was alone with my folks. Scary! Luckily, however, my brother, Dan, finished his first two years of the Army and came home for a short visit. I was so happy to see him! Being the thoughtful person he was, he had a small gift for me: a brand new abridged copy of The New Testament.

My family is reform Jewish. Not religious by any means. My grandparents had been Orthodox Jews from Russia; when they migrated to this country, both my parents rebelled and became more atheist than anything. While in the Army, however, Dan had met and spent his days with Christians. Over time he converted to Christianity -- in those days they called people like my brother "Jews for Jesus." And now, he had his sights set on converting me.

I was definitely interested in the ancient world of miraculous healing, loaves of bread and fish, apostles and Romans. I had never read anything like it, and I was mesmerized. I'll never forget the cover with a smiling Jesus, arms outstretched, with a glowing halo around his head. Geez, he looked happy! After I read the book in its entirety, my brother and I sat up late one night talking. He asked me if I could accept the Lord into my heart. I said, "I don't know." We talked about God, and what He might look like, etc., and then suddenly, for some unknown reason, I got scared. I felt as if there was a ghost or something in the room with us. All this talk about God was new to me, and I just freaked. I ran to my mom and told her about our discussion. She was never one to interfere, but she saw that I was distressed, so she told Dan to take it easy on the sermonizing. Something was starting to brew in our house.

The brew boiled over shortly after that strange night. A few days later I took a bad fall at school while playing basketball. I landed pretty hard on the asphalt and my legs were skinned deeply. The school called home and Dan came to pick me up. So there I was at home, legs bumped, bruised and skinned, lying on the sofa in pain, when my dad comes home early from work. Dad took one look at the New Testament I was rereading, and without a blink told me I had to throw it out. "That book is not allowed in our house," dad said. "We are Jewish."

I tried to talk to dad, but if you knew my dad, you'd know how futile it was to try and rationalize with a stubborn mule. Our "discussions" were more like him telling me what to do. There was no way around it, I had to toss out the book. Well, that was one bad day for me! Hobbling in pain, crying, I went to our third floor apartment trash chute and tossed my beloved New Testament. Down it went...clunk, clunk, clunk...I could hear it make its way down to the big trash bin below. Shall I call it hell?

When my brother discovered that my dad had made me throw out the book, he was livid, to say the least. An argument ensued, and my brother stormed into his room and literally put his fist through his door. (No kidding, he put a hole in the darn door!) Somehow, I felt responsible for the whole mess. If only I had hidden the book from my father...if I hadn't really thrown it out, but kept it in a secret place...But it was too late. Or was it? Dan finally came out of the room and whispered to me that he was going to go down to the basement and see if he could find the book in the trash bin. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say.

Dan and I snuck out of the house to the basement. My poor brother lifted himself up and over into a huge garbage bin (we lived in a large apartment complex) and sifted through tons of garbage. It was dark and stinky down there, and his efforts did not pay off. The book was lost in a sea of trash. We both cried.

Over the years my brother became less religious. He ended up serving in the Army for 20 years -- jumping out of planes, getting his Masters degree in Human Resources, marrying, raising a family, and traveling all over the world. I love him. I rarely see him. I love how he tried to rescue my book. That effort was his small sacrifice for me that spoke volumes about his humanity. I have, in turn, developed a deep respect and pride for my Jewish heritage. But I will also have a place in my heart for the Jesus I read about over thirty years ago. To my dear Christian friends, Happy Easter!