memories trapped in scents and sounds

Distinct smells seem to trigger memories. I encounter certain scents and moments in time are born again. The scent of my grandmother's perfume catches me every now and again and takes me back to her, back to the days when I was a daughter and everything was watercolored and drawn in pastels. Back to those days after something traumatic, when I just wanted to be lullabied. I was like a chick who had pecked its way through the shell and lay exhausted and damp with the smells of life. Only rather than trying to exit that little membrane, that shell, I was trying to climb back in.

After the bad times, perfume and music were what got me through. I listened to the same song, on repeat for days. It was the only sound I wanted around me. I tried not to hear his voice, or the echoes of those from my childhood. I tried not to hear my own muffled sobs and pleads, or the sounds of ambulances and strangers with stethoscopes and charts. And I thought if I sprayed enough of her perfume and kept my eyes closed and concentrated on how my body would move to those sounds, then I could make it. Every strand of that song is a part of my body, it echoes in my cells. I hear it, when there is no music, no humming, I feel it in my veins and in the husks of my soul. It is my safety music, a safety net for a girl who has none. A soft place to land, that I have tried to create, however loosely woven and self-invented it is.