Smell

Between ages 7 to 11, my older sister and I used to walk to Christ the King Church on Sundays, the nearest Church in our Pakistani neighborhood. Every Sunday, on our route, we would pass by this tree that was filled with small white flowers. I used to love picking the flower and inhale the smell, then put it behind my ear. In some small way, I used to look forward to Sundays just so I can smell them.

Since my days in Pakistan, I have never ever seen that flower again but I remember the smell.

Yesterday, when passing by Bath and Body Works, I thought I would go in and find the lotion that my friend wanted. Under the usual circumstances, I would avoid shopping at such a busy store because I don't have the patience to fight through the crowd just to save a few bucks. Nonetheless, I went in out of being nice and started a smell test of all their different kinds of antibacterial lotion. I thought the wild honeysuckle lotion smelled vaguely familiar but I wasn't able to pinpoint the familiarity. I picked up a few and then went to the said friend's house to drop them off. I then put a little bit of the wild honeysuckle lotion on my hands and even then, I couldn't recognize the smell.

This morning at work, I put some on again and out of my sudden thirst of knowledge, I googled wild honeysuckle and found all these images. Apparently, they bloom in all sorts of different colors and not just white.

So all day long at work, I've been inhaling my hands at every chance I get; each time, taking me back to the familiar route of a Sunday routine.

Now I know the name of my favorite flower, aside from orchids and lilies. This is my small miracle of the day.