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Posts Tagged ‘affection’

Olfactory 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
“The airport smells like ammonia,” says Karen
as we sit and wait for our plane. It does. Sharp. 
Stinging. She’s off to Minnesota, I’m off to New York, 
 
and as we catch up about children and jobs, 
I take a limbic trip to my childhood home, and I’m nine
and my hair is wrapped tight around thin,
 
pink plastic curlers. We’re in the upstairs
bathroom with little flowers in the wallpaper,
and my grandmother is squirting 
 
something stinky and cold on my scalp,
dousing me in the terrible smell.
She tops me off with a white shower cap and
 
admonishes me to be patient. Though perhaps
I was still, I was not patient. Staring at myself
in the bathroom mirror, I wanted to be beautiful.
 
I wanted to be treated like a grown up. I wanted 
to please my grandmother. After processing, 
after neutralizing, after the curlers came out,
 
and after the final wash, I did not feel beautiful. 
Or grown up. But I did feel, at least for that moment, 
cared for by a woman who was seldom warm. 
 
Almost fifty years later, I recognize the perm 
for what it was, a four-hour hug. And there, 
next to gate 3A, I smell it so strong, her love.  

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Dear Dad,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 23, 2017| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

Out the window the world is reassembling itself. The shades of green begin to emerge in the field—so many greens. Some part of me wants to name them all—emerald, sage, Kelly, lime, avocado, moss, spring. I want to name them not to organize them, but to celebrate each one.

 

Last week I did a training on how to assess parental affection. It’s a funny idea, the quantification of affection. It reminds me of the way children will sometimes fling their arms back behind their shoulders in an awkward joy and say, “I love you thiiiiiiiis much.”

 

One of the markers for affection is parental use of endearments—honey, sweetie, pumpkin, darling. As the evaluator, I am asked to mark if this is absent, present or emerging.

 

I don’t think you ever called me honey or sweetie, Dad, in fact, no generic terms of endearment. You always had your own special names for me that emerged out of play—Penelope, Reesmorie, Rosamarinipuscavazini, Roxanne the Foxanne, Rox. I always knew I was special to you, branded by your love of silliness, your love of me. And sometimes, when I was down, I would call you, and just hearing you say your special name for me made life seem just a little bit better.

 

The greens outside the window are brighter now. They seem to suggest an infinite potential inside a finite range. I know it is just the bending of light, but it thrills me.

 

This morning, I would like to give you this sense of infinite possibility, offer it to you while you are far away in a hospital bed and it feels as if the options are closing. Inside that finite window of options, there is an infinite potential for healing. We couldn’t possibly name all the available outcomes, though I suppose we could rate them as absent, emerging and present.

 

What is present is the enormous love I have for you. I’m not interested in measuring it, really, just in giving it to you, letting you know how I celebrate you. As if with love alone I could take away the pain you are in.

 

Who am I kidding? I guess I do wish I could express the extent of love so that you could feel the infinite ways it unfolds in the finite space of my heart. And though the only name I have for you, Dad, is generic, I wish that by saying your name on the other end of the phone, things might feel just a little bit better.

 

Dad, I love you, thiiiiiiiis much,

Roxanne

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