Cedar, Rosemary, Geranium and Orange
Does a man smell what he wants to smell and disregard the rest?
“What do I smell like?” I asked my family when I got home from yoga class.
They sniffed, thought, and sniffed again.
“I don’t know…pine?”
“Well…tonight’s class served up a bonus dash of essential oils,” I said. “First, we got a drop of cedar oil. We were instructed to put a dab on out third eye (middle of the forehead), then rub our hands together, hold them to our nose and take a couple of deep inhales through our nostrils. In a flash, my mind conjured a double image: guinea pigs in a cage with cedar shavings alongside a paint brush dabbing at our house’s cedar siding. That oil is some powerful stuff!”
Raised eyebrows all around.
“The second oil was rosemary. The instructor said it had a eucalyptus effect. She was right because when I deeply inhaled, not only did my sinuses clear, I was back in my childhood bedroom being smeared with Vick’s VapoRub by my mother.”
I could tell from my husband’s expression that he got it. He’d been slathered as a child, too.
“Next oil—geranium. Ewwww! I couldn’t trace it to anything. Here, smell my hands,” I said thrusting my palms at their noses.
“The final oil was orange. If you smell behind my ears you might think of Push-Ups—remember the orange creamy frozen treat in a cardboard tube?”
Nobody wanted to smell behind my ears. Their loss.
Essential oils and yoga are kind of like Snoopy and Woodstock. Where you find one, you’re likely to find the other nearby. I’ve never really taken to using oils, but it was fun to experience something different at tonight’s class.
I wonder what memories the scents would conjure for you…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a shower.
Thanks to Simon and Garfunkel for this letter’s title. :)