Coconuts evoke memories of summer.
I grew up in the Northeast and in Florida. Our summer [family] vacation commenced the last two weeks in August as an end of summer rush. We spent two blissful weeks at Ocean City, Maryland every year, before moving to Florida.
My mind flips to the file folders of pictures and memories from these halcyon days. We rose early, Mom and Dad getting my sister and I ready for a day spent on the beach. Mom sorting breakfast and packing our lunches, whilst Dad herded us out of the kitchen for one last bathroom break before ushering us out the door. Mom always joined us later after tidying up the rental flat and putting our lunches together.
I ate, always, peanut butter and jelly, orange or grape soda and chips of some sort. Funny, isn’t it, how I can’t remember what anyone else had? Once Dad managed to get us out of the flat, we picked up our assorted items that we carried with us. My sister, the baby, hauled her buckets and spades, packed and stacked with an engineer’s precision. My father hauled the beach blanket on his shoulder, with the umbrella resting on it, a tight grip on my sister’s hand and two beach chairs in his other hand. By the time these trips ended, I just had to hang onto the chairs as I hauled two more chairs and other assorted paraphenalia.
We arrived with the life guards in the morning and left with them in the evenings. We staked out our claim on the beach, close to the shoreline. We also reserved spots for our downstairs neighbors and landlord. Every year it was the same people staying with us. Heavenly.
With the setup of our beach plot completed, Dad liberally applied the sunblock. Not just any sunscreen served, though. My sister and I epitomized Coppertone kids. The doe-eyed, brunette, I turned a lovely chesnut colour. My sister, the blue-eyed blonde burned. Funny, at puberty, our body chemistry morphed turning my sister into the chesnut and me the tomato.
Of all of this, what stands out most, the scent of summer. It mixes Coppertone with sand and salty-sea. If I close my eyes, I hear the squeals of the seagulls and the whistle of the life guards. Coppertone, somehow always links with coconuts for me. Even though, I don’t think that was the base scent.
What brings all of this crystally back to me, I discovered a new bath scent: Exotic Coconut from Bed Bath and Bodyworks. With base notes of sandalwood and musk, normally, I would run from it. You see, those two scents generally trigger and allergy attack.
This time, the scents seem diffused and weakened, not nearly as overpowering as on their own. It reminds me of hot days on the beach, splashing in the surf and my youth. It also serves to remind me of hot nights laying between crisp cotton sheets, feeling the water rush over me again and again. Finally, the coconut scent brings all the memories together.
Thanks to the addition of the musk and sandalwood, this coconut summer scent adds a new dimention: Passion. In the shower as I wash or when I spritz myself with the body spray, the deep, warm scent presses me to think of hot passionate nights. Clutching at another body, hot and warm, my sensory memory has come full circle.
Shwayze: Corona and Lime: Corona and Lime - Single [3:55]
Technorati Tags: summer vacation, summer sensations, heat, coconut, coppertone, beach, vacation, Schwayze, Corona and Lime
Share/Save