Lavender Therapy

The other day I was in Target and, unlike most trips there,
I walked down a specific aisle for a specific reason.
I had to smell something.
I had a desperate need to mash my nose against a specific bottle and inhale.
Have you ever had that urge? Or am I the only weirdo. Don't leave me here by myself.

Eventually, I came across that purple bottle, The Healing Garden's Lavender Therapy.
I flipped open the cap and summertime in Jackson, TN circa 1998 came flooding back.

One of my best friends was dating John and her perfume of choice back then was Lavender Therapy. We had met him and his friends months before at a Burger King near our high school. Because everyone knows that they only thing better than meeting Mr. Right Now at a Burger King is meeting an older, attends a different high school than ours (mysterious!) Mr. Right Now at Burger King.

With the fries that bind, my group and their group blended flawlessly. Most summer nights you could find us piled in The K5 heading out towards the cotton fields to play the Ouija board or climbing through abandoned houses on the edges of old farms and convincing ourselves that they were the last remaining slave cabins in our town.

Lavender Therapy makes me think of going to that different high school's senior prom and watching my mom's face as the monster-sized K5 pulled into our driveway and I had to climb into it in a floor length gown.

It brings up fond memories of one of the guys in that summer group of friends that left this life far too soon.

And the amazing Beastie Boys Hello Nasty album. Intergalactic, anyone?

 (I'll stir fry you in my wok!)

The purple lotion Elizabeth coated herself with every day for months on end, reminds me of the night she was curious about John's feet and said laughing, "What's going on?! Do you have a foot deformity or something?" And he replied with, "Actually, yes, I do."

Memories. All conjured up by an old familiar scent.

What fragrance takes you back to a certain time and place?