I was fascinated. As I started smelling perfume, I began to have an experience that I hadn’t before. The experience was defined by two distinct facets that, when combined, sucked me into this whole perfume thing. First: logic. Smelling fragrances gave me something to think about. Second: emotion. I’d smell something and I’d feel a little patter in my heart. I suppose that is a physical reaction, but it stimulated an emotion of excitement, enjoyment, pleasure.
My Uncle Reno had a smell about him. I’d see him most often at my grandmother’s house, where we’d often go for Sunday dinner. It was a special smell. It suited a man of his age – which was, to me, as a child still in single digits, just old. It was a good smell. Pleasant. A little sweet, but a little off. It wasn’t floral, but it wasn’t not floral either. It didn’t fill the room, but you only had to walk where he had walked to easily smell it. It wasn’t loud, but there was no mistaking it. There was no hiding it. When he left, it was still there. It’s was my Uncle Reno’s signature scent. And the memory of it has stayed with me for more than three decades.