Smells Like Summer

I don’t know about you, but as for me – there’s just something special about the smell of new clothes. I suppose to someone who’s worked in the garment industry, back hunched over a sewing machine as it hummed hour after hour, the smell might not be so pleasant. For me, however, the smell takes me back to my youth. And not my teenage angst filled youth – the youth before that – the one in which life seemed okay, a little scary, but okay.

Late summer, when the crickets fill the air with their chorus of noise, I’d find my mother sitting on the sofa with two cinder block sized catalogues. A cold coca-cola on the table next to her, a cigarette burning slowly between her fingers while its white smoke swirled toward the ceiling and her other hand languidly turning the pages of this behemoth of a book.  When I was young, there were only two names I associated with clothes: Sears and JC Penney’s. I didn’t know of anything else. And all these clothes, from either of these two catalogues, arrived in a big brown van with the letters UPS marked boldly on the side. As a child I didn’t have a clue what the U.P.S. truck was, but I sure as heck knew what the ups truck was; it was the one that rolled in and out of our driveway at summers end and again right before Christmas.

Out of all those freshly delivered school clothes, my most prized outfit was worn on our - one and only - day at the county fair. This was, as I’m sure you’re now realizing, a very big deal. And sadly, at least for me, my favorite outfit had always been one better suited for the colder months. There I would be, this bright eyed, very shy little country girl – dripping in sweat as I rode as many rides as my ticket allowed. Nothing says fun like: 85° degree late summer heat and a turtle neck wool sweater, a very fashionable pleated wool mini skirt and knee high socks.

This perspiration nightmare repeated itself on the first day of school. Only instead of having a smile on my face while sitting on a toy motorcycle riding the carousel at the fair, there I sat in the classroom - nervous beyond belief. And like an ice filled glass left to sit on a picnic table under the sun’s glaring rays; my entire body attempted to liquefy. Before too long, full on melting would take place. By the time lunch rolled around, I was downright soggy.

But here today, as I stretch my arms out in front of me, holding my new blouse from a distance like a painting that’s better viewed and appreciated from afar, I smile. Pulling the blouse quickly back toward me, I can’t resist burying my nose within the fabric. I close my eyes, and I’m transported back thirty odd years, when my brother was busy gluing together a plastic model of a car, my mother was busy in the kitchen and my father was just in the other room.

Sane