Smells Like Teen Spirit

It smells like that gauzy, white canopy I had draped from the ceiling, over my bed, embracing with breezy yet gentle arms the entirety of my bed. Like fluffy duvets, made but rumpled from varying positions every so often. Like the sunlight bursting through seams between blinds that flood the room with light; my cream carpet is warm wherever the light is found. It smells like the hours I spent, feet crossed, on that bed, consumed in some novel. I devoured them, then. In the summer of my youth.

I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but it smelled like summer. Youth. Magic. Innocence, and girly dreams. Like the times I would just smile sweetly at a cute boy, and think of packing just one suitcase filled with books and bikinis and dresses, and fly off to Europe. South of France. Barcelona. Maybe an island somewhere…

That’s what Tocca Giulietta smelled like. Fate, I think, drew me to the pretty rollerball when my mind usually flies off with my imagination thinking of all the pretty pots and pans lined up in Sephora. Delicate, feminine, refreshing, as I sniff eagerly at my wrists. I later read that it was inspired by two lovers’—Italian director Federico Fellini and his wife, Giulietta Masina—trip to the island of Corsica. It’s a funny thing how drawn to this scent I am; I’ve always been one for the muskier, seductive perfumes. Tom Ford Black Orchid, or Tocca Colette, maybe Cleopatra (two heroines of mine).

But there I was, smelling of memories and sweet florals laced with musk and sandalwood. Of happiness.

If you could see happiness, it would be those rumpled white sheets and pile of books spread across the covers. It would be beads of vanilla rolling, melting—sticky—onto the fingers cupping the cool cardboard bowl. Icy, sweet, creamy against the flat of your tongue and roof of your mouth.

I suddenly want to sit under the lazy afternoon sun in a lilac mermaid bikini. Maybe read a little. Write a little. Me and my thoughts well hidden underneath a floppy hat, smiling and smelling of happiness.

.   .   .

x

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