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 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
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!
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
Same post can be found at Blogspot – Tournesol dans un jardin
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
What a journey I’ve taken in your time machine. I can smell the laundry room and the hair salon and those chairs when the dryer would fold down. Sigh for remembering.
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I still muss those dryers…all her clients slept..haha
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They were relaxing. I remember reading magazines. 🙂
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I tried to stay awake but that sound was my berceuse since I was 3 weeks old.
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such a rich melange
cheers
JzB
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Thank you so much
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I think you have proven the points exquisitely with these memories… the haibun form work so well to tell the stories.. very good read.. and so many senses…
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thanks so much for enjoying this, that means a lot; once we open the floodgates of our memories of scents…it’s hard to stop…I spread it out with another blog:)
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A trip through time… I too remember cars full of smoke – I tried one cigarette and had no more. Women going to get their hair done – Old women coming out with blue hair, kitchens filled with cooking. And then there wasn’t the distraction of all things electronic. Yes the haibun works your magic very well.
Thanks for taking in my ‘scents’.
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ah, that was so much fun going down memory lane. You are so lucky you did not smoke; my sister tried so many times but just could not. I’m afraid I quit 10 years and started up again but the past 7 years it is for good. My motivator…I had a grandson now and did not want to be remembered as “stinky Nana”.
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Good for you!
We knew a gal who quit cold turkey from four packs a day. Now a days smoking can be a very expensive habit.
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wow! that would be 40 to 48$ a day depending which province here.
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I think when she started it was only .50 cents or less a pack and about $3.00 a carton. But times change.
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Yep that was the price when I started and the first time I quit it was 6.00 a pack, the last time, it was 10.00 a pack. But times did change and they add more poison in the cigareettes than before.
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I’m very happy that our children do not smoke.
We still have an older relative or two that do.
One though is what I call a polite smoker. Always goes outside. Even in their own home they go into their garage if it is too cold. Different crutch. I guess we all have something.
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My kids did smoke off and on but always outside as well and now I think they have permanently stopped.
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First of all — I am so glad you are not smoking!!!!
I loved this wonderful mixture of scent memories — and the memories woven between the haiku are exquisite. I can remember some of them too, now that you mention them — the scent of hairspray, cigarette smoke, and permanent solution reminds me of Bonnie’s salon — up the street growing up. A little homegrown salon that always had its door partly open because the smell inside was so strong, LOL! I’ve never seen *anyone* use so much hairspray, oh my. Mom only used the salon IF she was too busy to “go into town” because Bonnie was such a horrible gossip! 😉
Lovely post Cher– you really poured your heart into this! Brava!
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Thank you, Jen! They are all fond memories even the sweet scent of that tobacco but GrandMaman’s cooking and pickling were probably the best!
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After reading your post I was trying to pin a “scent” to memories of Grandma — she always cooked and baked, but nothing there is really specific to grandma. Perhaps it would be the scent of newly purchased calico from the fabric store. Before macular degeneration she was a heck of a quilter. I remember the bitey smell that the cotton/calico would have – probably the dye in the fabric, or some sort of fabric finisher of some sort? You’ve given me something to think about.
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You really brought your memories alive here. Our sense of smell memory is so vital in recalling whole scenes. I lived each one in your descriptions. My strongest one, I think, is the smell of burning wood that always recollects for me contry hikes and camp fires with my dad and siblings. One whiff and I’m back there. You did amazingly well to recall them all wihout the actual scents there.
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Thanks so much, Annie, I tried to spray the compueter with Lantern Oil but it didn’t work 😀
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A wonderful journey through scents and memories … really loved walking through those years with you! The smell of perminents and hair dye particularly got at me… my Mom wasn’t a hair stylist, but she did her own perminents a colored her hair herself … and baby powder … brava!
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I know eh? those stinky permanents, the hair dye…what a mess…I still colour my roots and with my long hair…the mess I make (sigh)
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Ach … haven’t colored my hair in years … being basically a blonde my hair looks like it’s been meshed … I’m very lucky.
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I am so jealous…you are very lucky! I am the typical Welsh look (well the ones I saw on my visit) dark brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin…grey looks horrible on me…haha…well, there is lots in the front but not hte back as much…I will be like my grandmother probably…my mom coloured GrandMaman’s hair until she was 90 when hse went in the nursing home.
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Yeah … I know, at least in this I’m lucky … the down side is my hair is super thin … baby fine they call it. I’d rather have to touch up the roots 😉
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My mom’s hair is like that…silky fine and naturally curly…well, not now with your condition due to all the meds she takes. I take after my grandmother for the thick hair as do my kids. Hairdressers whine when they have to blow dry our hair.
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Yeah .. I can imagine … mine does my hair – wash and all in about half an hour.
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