Olfactive Flashback V.

I arrived home after a long day of work. In my head, there are still thousands of variations of raw materials chasing each other, I need to find the perfect balance between blackberry absolute and osmanthus oil, in oder to recreate the scent of "apricot jam made by grandma" as one of the clients requested. Although I am wearing gloves for making samples, the common "perfumery laboratory" scent is ingrained to my hair and clothes. I am trying to put my car to the middle of the tiny parking place, takes me more than 4 trials to get it right. I hate raining. I hate umbrellas.

I step out of my car, hoping this time there won't be any dog poor around. Before the door would close behind me, I have a vision of me at the age of 6 with my family, sitting on the stairs of the veranda of my grandmother's house. It takes a bit of time, until I realize that it is a scent that my brain reacts to. I smell aquatic. Sure, it is the rain. But I also smell sweet. I smell light red too, if it makes any sense at all. No, not pink, it's light red. And I feel exactly how I felt back on the veranda surrounded with my family. Security. Careless. Playful. Eager. Greedy.

My brain is quicker than my nose, and the answer comes in a form of a picture again, I see myself spitting little black tear-shaped seeds around the stairs. Watermelon.

I can smell a wonderfully ripe, juicy watermelon around at 7 pm in my open air parking lot, in the middle of March.

I want to find the source. A big part of the juicy-green scent would come from the rain, but there is something extra to it. Something that just turns a natural early spring shower to a perfect imitation of a real fruit that is not available in this region until mid-May earliest.

I sniff around like a hunting dog, hoping that no neighbors are coming by and that cute fellow perfumer guy, who lives across the parking, wouldn't look out of his window accidentally. Just a few meters away, around the corner, opposite to the direction of the entrance door, here she is, the ripe watermelon.... in the form of a Mimosa tree. In full bloom. It's aquatic scent multiplied by a thousand due to the raining. As I get close to it the watermelon fades away and it gives it's place to the concentrated powderiness. It's fragile branches are bending over me as if golden rain would fall on me at any time. The watermelon scent is like an aura around the tree, from 5 to 15 meters. I wish I could just take notes. I wish my nose would automatically translate all the isolates and aromatic compounds into a formula and I could have access to this scent anytime, anywhere. I miss my family. Plus I am craving watermelon now.

Before I could note anything in my head apart from helional, the wind takes away the scent leaving only my memories and my sweet-sour mood.