Smells Like Life to Me

I had been waiting for the day when I would run out of free lotion and thus be comfortable purchasing a new bottle of the Suave pump variety. That day arrived last week, and I picked up my 18 fluid ounces at Fred Meyer on Saturday. For three days now I have enjoyed the comforting, subtle aroma of Suave Advanced Therapy Moisturizer. This product is clinically proven to relieve dry skin.

But even better, this product is proven to evoke the memory of the era in which it was last used. My last Suave Advanced Therapy experience was my senior year of college, and so even from here in Seattle, this lotion smells like a college basketball season unleashing into December. It smells like the Pussycat Dolls song "Stickwitu" (Stick With You for those not familiar with such colloquialisms). Even more it smells like that brief window of my life when I used to listen to that kind of music.

Suave Advanced Therapy lotion smells like me and twelve of my closest friends getting ready for a Christmas tournament in Cancun, Mexico. In these aromatic breaths I remember a little less faintly what it feels like to win and lose deeply and to drive around a big town like Springfield, Missouri - before these major cities got ahold of me. It didn't take so long to get out into the open country in those days, up to a small town on Highway 65, or headed west for the farm. There was that triplex I shared with Buzz when rent was less than $200 a piece, and that beloved religious studies department that provided space for me to chase my wildest ideas. There was that beautiful trip down to Silver Dollar City to see the Christmas lights, and heart-to-hearts with my two precious senior teammates in whose eyes I could do no wrong and toward whom I expressed the same loyalty. A lotion is a powerful thing.

And now it's time to make a new smell memory.

Today I was riding home from work. The sun was shining - a perfect northwest day: mid-seventies and blue sky visible. On 1st Avenue's gradual downhill I sped by a small home construction site. The saw was whirring to a stop and the smell of sawdust caught me for a short moment. Suddenly I was there in the basement shop of Grandpa Varden, jig saw, radial arm saw, lathe, and all. I wished I could be there in Moundridge, Kansas, taking a carpentry lesson from the grandest perfectionist I know. Then I thought of the lotion and wished I could be a senior in college again too, the vocational absurdities flying about. The hurts of the world didn't seem so big back then. Then again, neither did the possibilities.

But now it's time to make a new memory. On the way home today I also smelled saltwater as I wound along 15th Ave NW in Shoreline. The sun reflected off the Puget Sound and the mountains stood beyond in the distance. This smell is current, and I often catch it as I ride down into Richmond Beach. It reminds me of the girl I love and her Florida love of this smell. It reminds me of now and this present beauty I would scarcely have imagined the last time Suave Advanced Therapy lotion was current.

And all this leads me to wonder, in four more years when this bottle is long gone and I happen upon my next one, what will I remember? Maybe those months when my job was beginning to feel just a touch more like mine, awkward transition into congregational ministry and all. Maybe I'll remember when I met these brilliant, stubborn, innovative, mysterious, talented youth. Maybe this apartment will come to mind - how small it was but how much like home. Or maybe in four years the lotion will remind me of that time I used to live in Seattle, in that none zone of geographical grandeur that lights my adventurous spirit in ways like nowhere else.

Indeed, it is time to make these new memories.