~8~ Lockie: I have a collection of several hundred miniature perfume bottles, one or two of which I try to sniff every day, just for the nostalgic experience. I keep them in the living room in antique-oak printer trays. Many are very old fragrances, no longer made, as I began collecting as a child, and I also inherited an aunt's collection that was started in 1906. My favorite vintage scent is Blue Waltz, which came in little heart-shaped bottles with blue caps. Any money I came by was saved for these, which I bought at the dime store for 19 cents. I still have several and often put a dab on a wrist before bed. Bellehumeur-Allatt: Once, during a worship meeting in Toronto, I smelled a heady perfume of musk and oriental spices. It was a heavy scent, like an essential oil; neither male nor female; intoxicating in its depth; the perfume of royalty. I was in a large auditorium, sitting near the right aisle. I studied the people on either side of me, those in the seats in front and behind. My husband stared ahead. He could not smell anything. The scent faded and then returned again a few moments later, stronger than before. I turned to look at the people walking by, but the scent lingered, all around me, before it lifted. Everything in me strained after the scent. I needed to know where it came from. I asked my husband about it, but he shrugged, still couldn’t smell anything. Later on, at lunch, I started to tell my friend Celia about it. “A fragrance,” I said, “a kind of heady perfume . . .” “Like anointing oil,” she said, jumping in. “A royal scent, spicy . . .” I stared. She had been sitting on the other side of the conference room. “It was Jesus,” she said, and I believed her. Hanninen:
What one person do you associate most with a particularly distinct scent?
Heaton: My first-grade Sunday-school teacher, Rebecca. She smelled like mothballs and old pine. Jones VI: The woodsmoke from my wood-burning stove always reminds me of my father. He was an arborist and, at one time, the owner of a barbecue restaurant. He taught me how to cut, split and cure wood, and how to build a fire. Coming home from school in the wintertime, I could smell chimney smoke welcoming me from a block away. Carr: A friend of mind has a tendency to douse herself in perfume. Ordinarily this isn’t really an issue, however in the confines of a car, a gas mask could come in very handy. Reilly: Not a person, but my cat (R. I. P. Frishka Ginger Reilly) used to always smell like macaroni and cheese. She was an omnivore. Lockie: A deceptively evil woman who irreparably harmed my family. My family and I have moved on, but I still can't stand to walk through the department-store section that holds the perfume she wore (way too much of). Bellehumeur-Allatt: My daughter, Emma, is always the first one up the steps and into the house after we’ve been away visiting relatives. “It’s the smell of home,” she says, leaning her weight on the wooden bench in the front hall and breathing deeply.