The smell of memory

Those are the smells of the past, sometimes returning in dreams or when accidentally caught in some random moments. The smoke from burning rice in the summer afternoon, the smell of food coming from someone's kitchen, the smell from the sweaty hem of mother's shirt after a long tiring day of work...

Illustration: HOANG DANG

In the vastness of my childhood memories, the smell that haunts me the most is my mother. The woman who worked hard all her life with an old bicycle as her "assets", working hard to raise her children twice a day at the market. Every day, my mother would wake up with the first crowing of the rooster announcing a new day and return home when it was already dark. The moment my mother sat fanning herself with her conical hat on the windowsill after a long journey is forever imprinted in me as the most typical image. My mother's back was soaked with sweat as if it wanted to form into a sheet of salt, the salty smell of hard work and hardship quietly permeated my mind with an endless lingering love.

Growing up far away, among the countless memories I carry, I cannot miss the smell of my mother. At night, I lie awake missing the smell of sweat, the burnt smell of hair combed by the sun from morning to evening. My mother did not have enough time to take care of herself, all year round her thin clothes were worn out, but I loved that smell of hard work and wind.

I grew up with my grandmother because my parents often sent their children to her to take care of when they went on business trips far away, sometimes for a whole week before returning. At that time, the village did not have electricity, especially on windy summer nights, my grandmother always had to fan her with her right hand all night long to lull her grandchildren to sleep. Gradually, I became attached to her scent, and every time we were away for a few days, I would long for that "special smell" that was hard to name, and also the image of her splitting areca nuts, wrapping betel leaves, pounding them in a mortar and then sitting and chewing them noisily on the steps.

I remember the twilights, when the crescent moon was looming in the distant sky, stirring up the strong south wind, my grandmother often spread out a mat in front of the house for her grandchildren to sit and enjoy the cool breeze. What is still imprinted in me is the distant smell of childhood with the pungent scent of the earth, the scent of the fields mixed with the chirping of crickets, the chirping of a lost chick...

I remember my grandmother’s wooden cupboard, which sometimes had cassava, sweet potatoes, and corn for her hungry grandchildren. That was the place where every time we came home from school or from playing, we would all rush to rummage through. Later, after going through many luxurious meals in the city with a myriad of delicious and strange foods, I still yearned for my grandmother’s kitchen and the gifts of my childhood. There were the sticky rice figurines, which when we were bored with playing, we would bury them in hot ashes to eat, the powdered candy, the fragrant star apples that we waited for our grandmother on every market visit… all of them were still intact, sparkling in a memory.

Every time I return to my hometown, I often have the habit of looking for “gifts from the past”. I call them gifts because they are precious and valuable when they are still preserved until now. Flipping through each letter that friends and relatives wrote to me during the years away from home to study; seeing the familiar handwriting of the girl I secretly loved… suddenly arouses a nostalgic smell of memories with so many unfinished, lost things and pages stained with the color of time.

There are still so many memories imbued with joy and sadness of the past that may not be intact over the years; but for me, I am like someone indebted to the past with endless sobs when talking to the past with so many regrets and sorrows that keep evoking it.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/channel/5433/202504/mui-ky-uc-4003534/