Lavender Lotion and “Temps Perdu”

img_20170125_090600-lavender-lotionI don’t use much scented lotion. I’m allergic to many floral scents, particularly roses and lilies. They make me sneeze. So I buy hypoallergenic brands. Gifts of scented hand lotions tend to sit on my counter for a long time, to be used only on special occasions when I want to feel pampered and don’t mind a little tickle in my nose.

I just used up one bottle I wish I could have kept longer. My parents gave me a bottle of lavender lotion in the summer of 2006, when I first visited them on the Olympic Peninsula. They were glad to have me visit, and they were so excited to show me their new home and community and some of the beautiful sights of that corner of the state where I’d been born (a corner where I’d spent little time as a child).

Waiting for me in the guest bedroom when I arrived was this bottle of lavender goat’s milk lotion—a reverse housewarming gift of sorts. My mother raved about the excursion to Swiss Lavender Farm near Sequim, Washington, where my parents had bought the lotion made from locally grown lavender and goat’s milk. She talked about the fields of purple flowers, the cute little goats, and the Swiss chalet that was part of the farm.

lavender-1595490_1280“We’ll have to take you there,” she said. “If not this trip, then another time.” But we never made it to the lavender farm.

Even without the visit to the farm, I enjoyed the lotion. It had a lovely creamy texture, a good consistency to spread. The lavender scent was not too strong and didn’t cause me too much of an allergic reaction.

So much has happened over the last decade since I received that bottle of lavender lotion. My parents had a few wonderful years on the Olympic Peninsula, broken up by international travel and trips to visit friends and relatives and month-long winter stays in Carmel, California.

Then my mother started having health problems—leg pain that couldn’t be diagnosed, blood chemistry imbalances, and in 2010 she was also diagnosed with dementia. From there it was downhill, and in January 2013 she moved into assisted living and later into dementia care. As readers of this blog know, she died in July 2014, and my father died suddenly just six months later.

And through it all, with each of my sparing uses of the lavender lotion, I thought of them. And remembered good times and bad. The Olympic Peninsula days and earlier times.

Finally, a few months ago, the pump dispenser on the bottle quit working—not enough lotion left to pump. I clung to the bottle as a memory of my parents, so I researched the lavender farm that produced it, hoping to buy more lotion for myself. Unfortunately, Swiss Lavender Farm has gone out of business and I could not buy more.

So I turned the bottle upside down and scooped out as much as I could with my finger. This last week, however, I had to concede I’d used it all. I took a picture of the bottle for this post, then threw it away.

Smells have a powerful effect on memory, as Proust wrote of his madeleines in À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.

Proust’s title was originally translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past. More recent translators have used In Search of Lost Time. The latter translation is much closer to the French, but still doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the French for me. “Recherche” means not only “search” or “searching,” but can also mean “research” or “study.” And “perdu” means not only “lost,” but also “wasted,” as well as “missing” and “disappeared.” So Proust intends his novel to be about a deliberate, questing search for a past that is gone—perhaps just disappeared, but perhaps a past that has been wasted.

There seems to be a finality in “temps perdu” that is sadder than the English “lost time.” I find myself often on a quest for my own “temps perdu.” That’s why I write this blog. That’s why I focus so much on memories in my posts. My mother’s past was lost to dementia and then to death. I try to keep mine alive in words that remain after me.

And all this I thought of when I smelled the last of my lavender lotion.

What odors bring memories to mind for you?

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