So, I had one of those moments today. You know, when you smell something you haven’t smelled in long time and it takes you back. We were in Bath and Body Works and I saw that compound word on the side of a plastic bottle and could not believe what I was seeing. PEARBERRY is back.
It is not necessarily a scent that I really love now, but it was my scent during high school. I loved that stuff. It was way cooler than just the original Sun Ripened Raspberry, Country Apple, or Cucumber Melon it was one step past all that. You know when you feel like you are on the cutting edge because your favorite is something more than just the average. (yeah, I’m weird, it doesn’t take much to entertain me..and it never really has)
Any way, I put a sample size in my hands and as I rubbed them together and my hands began to absorb the moisture, I was transported back. Back 10-12 years ago to Latham Springs at 4:45 in the afternoon. Maybe it was the fact that it felt like it was 100 degrees, but that was my summer scent. Long before Mango Mandarin was my summer scent, I would make sure I had my Pearberry bottle of lotion. I think I felt cool because I had Bath and Body Works lotion…like that was some social status symbol (actually, I think it was).
But, for those of you who read this that were there at that same moment, let me paint this picture for you. We had been out in the afternoon at Youth Camp. Whether getting a treat at the snack area, trying to find the cute boys who were playing in the summer band, enduring last minute Talent Show practice, or heaven forbid sitting out watching the athletes in our youth group take on the counselors in a rousing game of basketball or softball, we were definitely in need of a shower before dinner. So, 40 girls sharing a bathroom, trying as much as possible to get ready for dinner as quickly as they could because we always waited too late.
If we were lucky, we had asked some boys to dinner with some cheesy rhymy poem, at lunch, at the mic in front of everyone and they were going to be at our cabin door in 5 minutes and we would begin to fight over who would eat with who – if claims had not already been made. None of us were really in a hurry to get to dinner. You see, we would spend the next few moments in line, outside wrapping around a building in the 5:00 heat. We had worked really hard to wear just the right dinner/ worship outfit, if it was older boys – we were all nervous, if it was younger boys – we were figuring out how to make small talk through the most awkward days of our existence. Then, we would get in line and probably have a mixture of spaghetti, garlic bread, cooked carrots and chocolate pudding (the only thing I would eat) waiting for us. However we would never really know if it was good or not because as soon as we got to our table, we would either begin yelling/chanting/cheering incessantly or coming up with what we were going to go up to the mic and say.
And, we had no idea what amazing message was in front of us. No idea if we would have the most emotional night of our life (of at least the week). No idea how God would drastically change each of our lives that evening. No idea if this would be the night that one of our lost friends who came to camp would find Jesus for the very first time. No idea if one among us would feel the call to full time ministry. No idea what would be ahead for the evening.
I wonder, just wonder, if we had known that…would we have changed the way we prepared ourselves? Would we have talked about something different at dinner? Would we have sat with the same person or spent more time with our girl friends and less time worrying about boys?
Anyway. That was there PEARBERRY took me. A moment (or many moments) in my past. Those were great days, that made up some of my favorite memories of high school. I can still hear the chatter in front of the mirrors, remember the chaos of dresses as everyone wore each other’s clothes, see all the hair products and curling irons (no straighteners then) lined up on the counters and the fighting through the hair spray fog! What great memories!
What about you? What smell takes you back to a certain moment? Or, to summer youth camp?
Isn’t that interesting how our senses can kick in and jog our memories!?!
