Author Information
My Grandmother's Perfume
I remember being around 10 years old, running up to my grandmother on Christmas eve after a present Exchange and hugging her thank you for my collectable over-priced doll. As seconds grew bolder, this intense aroma started to delight my senses. The same smell that intoxicated me once with joy, did it over and over again. Through thick and thin the one thing I could be certain of was that I could run up to my grandmother and hug her, in that instance I would go back to that 10-year-old girl, excited about her brand new doll. Her perfume placement was one straight out of a movie scene. A silver platter over her marble counter holding tens of scents. Each different size, color and label. She showed me, with kind eyes the thing she knew made me happier, “eau de Cartier” it was called. On winter her house would smell of recently turned on chimney, candles and perfume. On autumn essences changed towards cinnamon, candles and perfume. Summer would smell like air refresher, lemonade and perfume. Spring however, was all about flowers, cake and perfume. It was as if she knew, she knew the power her smell had over us. As a little girl I fantasized about growing up, about having that exact same smell as my very own. Yes, my grandmother was a fine lady, but not a pompous one. She grew up being taught how to be a woman, the trademarks a proper one should have. She decided such emblems were not to define her. She studied, prepared herself for an independent life, packed her things and traveled all over the world. An incredible, early feminist on the rise to conquer her own future. I recently realized that the overall tranquility that specific aroma would provide me was not in the elegance of a refined scent, but what that delight would represent. It was a sign of calmness, safeness and love; liquefied, packaged and labeled. A combination of memories, smiles, tears and laughs that makes up what I call a family today. Traditions that were always accompanied by that same smell, a trademark of my grandmother’s, an emblem to remember what we always discussed one day I will become. At the left corner of my bathroom, on my very own marble counter, on top of a silver tray, lay my particular perfumes, hugging the smell that once drew the image of my future, eau de Cartier.
