smell, such an underrated sense of being.
it provokes memory and for me it sometimes feels like time travel into the past.
the smell of fresh, cool air in the early morning hitting my nostrils reminds me of waking up next to my grandmother in her room in Ibadan.
the smell of eggs cooking in sautéed onions reminds me of how elegantly her hands moved, how meticulous she was in preparing a meal with so much love.
the smell of J'adore by Dior takes me back to my preteens watching my mother apply her makeup and misting herself, while my child mind contemplated how someone could be so beautiful, so complex.
today in downward dog my shirt slipped over my chin, onto my nose.
I inhaled my skin and immediately smelt my mother in her natural essence, earthy & unmistakably hers.
a lot of feelings came up in that moment. we do not have a great relationship. sometimes it feels like it is hanging on by a thread, as if any wrong word or reaction might tear the fibres of it again.
I smelt her and could not help but marvel at the quiet power of creation. the biological information passed from mother to child lives in a thousand minute details, first formed in the quiet darkness of the womb, then etched into bone, carried through bloodlines, whispering even in the smell of the skin.
I wonder now how far back this sweet, earthy smell goes.
did my great great great grandmother smell like this?
today I am thankful for the sense of smell, for the quiet reminder that my body is part of a long chain of women.
