Led by the nose

By Emmanuelle

A  story went that upon seeing their daughter’s first born, this grandma nodded to grandpa and said “this child truly is of our clan. It has our characteristic bulbous nose and wide, flaring nostrils”. Then, both looked disapprovingly down their noses at their daughter’s unnaturally high-bridged, delicately thin proboscis courtesy of Belo and Associates.

Do you live happily and peacefully with that which had been stuck smack right there at the center of your face, by God and Genes? Or are you one of those with a nose for meddling with nature and all things not wise so definitely not so wonderful? Thus, you sought out those who have the nose for business and had yourself a nosy exchange through plastic surgery, no matter how expensive and excruciating? 

Big or small, high or flat, wide or narrow – this writer has no intention of poking her nose into your sensitive affairs. Please, don’t smell something fishy here; don’t even snort in scorn. A creative writer lets the nose do the pointing to whatever could be nosed into.

Going back, ay! front to the nose. Literally, the nose leads you on. Stand straight, your back flat against a wall. The nose is the most forward part of the body, di ba? Then, take a fast walk. The nose thrusts aggressively forward before the rest of your body follows.

If life is a marathon race, the victor is the first one to poke a nose across the finish line, swinging arms and pumping legs not counted. That is, if one does not possess the liyad posture, wherewithal the chest presents a twin-cone front. That is, if one is not perpetually tuwad, the butt lagging, the tip of the chin cutting its way first through the air. Either way, both postures pose eternal threat to the spine; the breaking point is not so far behind.

Studies have shown that the fondest of our memories (or our most foul) are those experiences that most of our senses have gone through at the same time. Those that we have seen with our own eyes, heard with our own ears; those that had touched us, or we had touched with our skin, tasted with our buds; but even more so, those that carry the distinction of having tweaked our noses. Reliving a past experience seem more of a total recall when even the olfactory nerves twitch at the memory of it all.

You smell it once again. Remember the sweet-sour scent of Inay’s breast as you snuggle closest to it for your suck of milk? The yellow smears on the diaper she draped over her shoulder to catch the aftermath of your satisfied burps or regurgitated overfed? And when you yourself    turned into a parent, did you breathe in the gentle pat of talcum on baby’s soft neck, under its arms and between elbows’ bends, on smoothly rounded tummy, and the cute streaks behind its knees?    

Go back in time. A foggy morning rhymed with garlicky steams wafting from hot fried rice, topped by yellow yolk on white, daing or tapa crunchy darkly brown, sliced tomatoes and onions on the side. You were home, and for a time, you were safe.

The bite in the fragrance of grass freshly cut, the dust disturbed on lawn just swept, curly smoke twisting from piles of browning leaves and broken-off twigs. The sweat from Inay’s brows, the tears from her eyes – salts of the earth.

Sometime in the past, you smelled the wrongness in the air. You had turned your nose up and away from what was noxious and probably evil. Adrenalin had pumped and gushed out the sugar in your blood. You sniffed the fear from your flailing, failing nerves.

Good if you inhaled a lungful of courage and exhaled a blow full of rage. The world would be better with the exchange. But this kind of memory would be disastrous, if what is remembered is the smell of vomit as you puked out cowardice or your helplessness. It is a memory you would rather do without.

A loved one sprayed on mild cologne so as not to drown out the freshness of a bath shower. A smile, and there! a whiff of mint. Sadness hid well. You never got a hint of sorrow, just of a promise and a whispered prayer.

You may never meet again, but that memory of a scent lingers on. And on. You smell it even from beyond.

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