I grew up around jasmines.

If it wasn’t the flowers that my mother brought home, it would be in the perfumes she, and my grandmother would wear on special occasions. Our home felt like a valley of flowers on some evenings.

You smelled the jasmine scents; you were lulled into believing that somehow, what wasn't alright, would be alright.

That’s the enchantment of perfumes. They can be bottled memories that we are. Most of the time, they’re comfort and healing.

Sometimes, not so much. It’s different for everyone, perhaps. Some would say that they love a little musk.

Yet it stings my eyes a little, as I’m reminded of a person wearing a heavy dose of it, during a funeral.

Sometimes, grief arrives as perfume.

The strange intimacy of memory and scent

It's the Proustian memory effect, where smells evoke emotionally charged memories.…