Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Sense of Smell

I love the quiet, early mornings. I'm sitting in the living room watching the sun stretch its rays over the horizon, Joe is in position at the window watching the world go by and Meeko is laying in the middle of the room bathing. I've finished my shower and am enjoying my first cup of coffee and am suddenly transported back in time to the lake with my parents. You see, when shopping for shampoo recently I saw that Suave has coconut scent and I quickly snatched it up. So my coconut shower first sent me down memory lane and now my coffee clinched the deal. For my darling daughter-in-law introduced me to Coffeemate's coconut creamer and it is oh so good.

In addition to loving the taste of all things coconut, the smell is definitely a memory inducer for me (isn't it funny how smells can bring back memories almost as fast as a picture?). Coconut paints a vivid picture in my mind of going to the lake with mom and dad as a preteen. We'd hop in the boat and I'd start slathering on Coppertone's Tanning Oil, which had the most wonderful coconut scent. I'm not even sure if there's such a thing as tanning oil anymore as I spend my "tanning" dollars looking for the highest SPF product available, but back when I used this I don't think anybody knew about skin cancer - or if they did we surely didn't know about the link to sun yet. Anyway, back to the boat (!), and off we'd go across the lake at full throttle to the islands. Daddy would find the perfect spot for us and drop anchor. Mom and I would gather the gear necessary for our afternoon - a tire innertube, floppy hat, can of Pepsi and a papback novel. Into the lake we dropped, then got in position on top of the innertube and we'd wrap our toes/feet around the anchor rope to keep from floating out to "sea". We would bob along contentedly for as long as daddy would put up with it, usually the entire afternoon. It really was a perfect afternoon.

And that's what comes to mind when I smell coconut. About the only thing I need now is to find out if Yankee Candle has a coconut candle and then I'd be set!

Gratitudes
1. The early morning peace of the breaking day.
2. The ability to smell wonderful scents and be able to remember good times growing up.
3. Having a friend to call when I need a ride to the doctor (stitches out this afternoon hopefully!) and she actually sounded happy to oblige!

~ Elizabeth

always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Ephesians 5:20

1 comment:

tarcher said...

What a wonderful memory of your dad. I wasn't raised around my dad, we didn't get to know each other until I was an adult and married. Thank you for sharing it.