Free Oud Memories Essay Example

That smell. I can remember quite well. How can I forget! How could she know? There must be a place, I thought, somewhere. The hair is so dense and all over me I can barely see. That could have made me mad at her. Now, being carried away back to what are distant memories, I just do not bother. The smell!
Years ago, in a distant country, Oman, I would wake up to a stubborn sun penetrating my glass window. Given to poking, I would sit up on bed and prepare for a daily ritual. Of all places, I would always go to granny. Her graceful smile, caring eyes and cheerful demeanor would always greet me after I have my breakfast. Not saying a word, she would bless me, as she would later impart to me, with her secret oud and bukhoor. The scents, granny used to say over late dinners on Fridays, are not just odors one puts on cloth or let diffuse in house.
According to family legend, granny used to say over and again, a great grandpa in our family happened to stumble over a big, fallen branch as he walked alone in a nearby wood. He almost broke an arm but, fortunately, he did not and, for generations to come, he happened to fall over a place where he found big stocks of scents passed on to generation after another. This is where I used to get a daily oud blessing, granny used to say. Later, I found out about a store granny used to buy oud and bukhoor from. The family legend was just nothing, a mere imagination. Still, granny had a way of making stories appear real. I just believed her and so I still after her passing many years ago.
Indeed, granny had a way of blessing everyone back in Oman over Friday dinners. The smell of something intimate, graceful or serendipitous was always present in our extended family gatherings. That was passed on, too, to mom.
That I am right now in New York, crushed between an oddly dressed 50-something woman and a being whose hair is all over me in a packed elevator, I am just recalling.