I was packing for Melbourne today and as I was looking through my wardrobe for what stuff I should take, I noticed a familiar smell. It wasnÂ’t unpleasant, and was pretty faint, but it was the musky smell of the suits and jackets in the wardrobe, which I suppose is really the smell of me. Yet it was very specifically the same aroma that I recall from the wardrobe that my dad kept his clothes in when I was little. It took me straight back to games of hide and seek (wardrobes are such good hiding places, so always look there first if you are a seeker) and stifled laughter. But it also reminded me of those fleeting early years of your life when father and son are not afraid to be close to one another and we could cuddle and I could fall asleep on his lap. Although I donÂ’t particularly hanker to repeat that scenario now that I am 35, it was comforting to be taken back to those days through that amazingly accurate olfactory memory.
But whether hiding or hugging it really is a smell of security and safety.
It was a telling reminder of the days before adolescent rebellion when your father meant everything to you. The older I get the more that I realise that kids get it right on so many things (apart from finding good hiding places, which they suck at), and that the self-consciousness that comes with puberty, though necessary, blinds us to a lot of what is true and good.
The father/son relationship is a bond that we have to break in order to become men ourselves, but hopefully one that will repair itself once our own manhood is established. It embarrasses me how long it has taken me to realise just how much my parents did for me.
But it was weird to realise that his smell is also my smell. Though perhaps not surprising given our genetic similarity. However much I still try to rebel against it I am more similar to him than I like to acknowledge. Though I donÂ’t know why I don't want to admit that. If I could be half the man he is then I would have every right to be proud of myself.
