SCENT

Many of my memories were stored by scent.

My first awareness of scent was my aunt’s closet. Right after my parents’ divorce, my mom took me back to her parents’ house to live for a while. Mavis, my older cousin, and I were happy to be in each other’s company. Mavis’ mom worked as a secretary in a foreign company. It was very unusual and prestigious in the late 1970’s Taiwan ‘cause not that many people finished high school; not to mention she was a university graduate who spoke fluent English. I was three, too young to understand the significance of her occupation in that time and space. All I obsessed about was the fact that my aunt always smelt soft and beautiful; and I wondered how she made all her clothes smell like her.

To this day, whenever I speak or think of my kindergarten, I can recall the smell so vividly as if I never left: the sweetness of cookies and milk, and the smell of hot metal fireman poles and dry wooden teeter-totter under the blazing sun. Memories of my elementary school are mostly filled with the smell of sweat: from the people on the bus during my hour-long commute to school and from spending every recess in the school yard that didn't offer any shading.

High school was more of a blur, and it kind of makes sense. After all, who would have the time and energy to notice smells when she was so wrapped up in the drama of adolescence? The only thing involving scent that I remember was the day I experimented with my mother’s perfume. My mom has never been a perfume wearer, but she did have a few bottles in her drawer. I thought it would make me sophisticated like Mavis' mom so I dabbed a few drops behind my ears and between my nipples. It was winter and the buses were packed during rush hours. The pungent and unfamiliar smell made me so self-conscious and paranoid I was convinced that everyone on the bus was struggling to stay alive by catching a few breathes of fresh air when the doors opened. I ran straight for a sink as soon as I got to school. Despite the cold, I scrubbed behind my ears and washed my neck. The smell lingered around me like a ghost that day. The embarrassment burnt a fragrant imprint in my memory. I can smell it as I’m telling you the story today.

It was one of those lazy Sundays in the summertime that you wish you could skip your part-time job and spend the day lying spread eagle in the sun. I was 16, studying Electrical Engineering at a lousy college. I had been working at McDonald’s for about 5 weeks. It had been so dreadful that I didn’t feel the joy (or pride) when they finally moved me up from cleaning the floors to working in the kitchen. I was in charge of the deep-fryer that day and I hated the fact that I smelt like one. I watched the air bubbles struggling to get out of the boiling oil and wondered how, or if, I could ever escape from this boring meaningless life. Then the manager thundered into the kitchen. “Who speaks English?” he shouted. I looked around the kitchen. Everyone looked away. The manager’s chest was filled with panic and frustration. “No one?” he squeezed these words through his teeth. I was afraid that he might snap. “Why d’you ask?” I heard a small voice without realizing it was my own. “You! Come with me.” The manager dragged me by my wrist to the front counter where there stood a tall foreign man with hair blinding like the sun. “You get him what he wants,” the manager dropped his command on the floor and left. I don't remember much of what happened except the fact that the foreigner smelt like sandalwood. I remember wondering why he would want to smell like incense.

I never worked a day in the kitchen at McDonald’s after that Sunday. In fact, I quit two weeks later and started working as an assistant teacher at a children’s English school. The smell of grease was replaced by the smell of sharpened pencils. Two years later, I was the coordinator of Frontier Children’s English School and was in charge of all 5 schools in Taipei. Alice and Janet, the two strict and wicked managers who saw something in this college dropout on the interview day, bought a bottle of perfume as a gift for my 18^th birthday. My first bottle of perfume: Tresor by Lancome. Armed with this sensual elegant fragrance, I became a woman: a woman who was given a taste of power and success much greater than she had ever imagined.

I wore Tresor for about 4 years until I realized, underneath all the glamour and lush, it really wasn’t worth my while to stay on this power ride. I was suffering from numbing migraines that sent colorful flashing stars to my vision. I couldn't sleep at night, but my doctor warned against increasing the dosage on sleeping pills. On some days, my head would hurt so much that it made me vomit. I knew I had to stop and I had to change my life. So when Alice and Janet quit, I turned down the offer to be the manager and followed their footsteps. As far as I was concerned, my loyalty was exclusive to those two women who gave me a chance to see what I was capable of.

Memories of my first impressions of Canada smell like the freezer. Many of the tangled flashes of memory were cold, distant, and pale gray. For the most of the first couple of years, I barely had enough money for school and grocery. My sense of smell was aroused again when I worked part-time at VanWest College while trying to finish the last 3 semesters of university. I had smelt it on Heather, an Asian Canadian woman who had just gotten married, and the fragrance was friendly, airy, gentle, and calming. I thought that ought to be what stability smells like. It was on the last day Heather worked as an ESL teacher when I asked her the name of her perfume. I don’t know if she continued to wear it in her new job as a customs officer, but Treasure by Estee Lauder has been my scent for the past 10 years.

The last ten years changed my life and fossilized parts of who I am today. All the successes and failures, love bites and heart breaks, were wrapped in this fragrance. It has become a part of my identity. It makes some people think of me when they smell it. Though I might not have established the kind of stability I desired, I was certainly settled and content in my own being. New doors were opened and boundaries were broken. I discovered and perfected new abilities and skills, and I did it all in this fragrance that sooths me. No wonder I got so upset last night when Bill confessed that he hadn’t been a fan of my perfume. And he waited three years to tell me.

Who knows?! Perhaps it’s time for me to change my scent. Bill thinks I should try something spicier. The idea of changing the perfume sounds intriguing, but for the most part, I find myself unwilling to let go of what has been familiar and terrified that some important parts of my past will fade away with this scent.