As I tossed the quartered oranges, butter, and freshly squeezed orange juice into the Cuisinart for the orange marmalade muffins that morning, I thought about how I did not like the scent of my mother as a child. Even now, I really do not like her perfume. If I think about it, which I do not like to do, I have an aversion to her. The scent turns my head, and not in a good way.

Pulse; look out the window; pulse; what the fuck? I felt the burn of yet another untimely freak out approaching head on, just a month after my late discovery adoption.

How could they have never told me that I was adopted? When I asked they said I was crazy and deluded so I backed off, thinking I must be crazy and deluded. 

I stopped cooking for a second to catch my breath. In an instant all the smells and memories of my life had been erased by amnesia, and were now gone. How was I supposed to relive my memories with the now putrid odor of dumping adrenals consuming the air around my body? Would I ever be able to look back onto my life with the same naïve innocence, despite my always having known of my adoption at a visceral level? The regular assaults of misrepresentation have a steep price.

As I explored the complexities of inner conflict, time, my senses and memory, I thought about Marcel Proust writing about the smell of a madeleine dipped in tea bringing on a rush of joy associated with his childhood. Would I ever be able to reclaim any sense of self, or my past, for that matter? Were my olfactory senses going to involuntarily go blank now? Were they going to rewrite my life’s journey? All of my memories and senses felt threatened and in danger as I wondered about the future of my own childhood memories. 

They say the smell of our mother is hard-wired into our brains, with the baby’s ability to smell beginning in the womb with the amniotic fluid. At a few days old a baby can differentiate between its mother and a stranger, and mothers are said to have a strong instinctual urge to smell their babies, thought to be related to bonding. No bonding or love hormones from her to me or from me to her. We were “sense” strangers. I naturally searched out and found my own scents and smells to attach to for bonding to the family I was given to, the smell of clean sheets at my aunt’s house or the ever problematic Hungarian dish made with bone marrow that smelled so good, despite the fact that I refused to eat it; flat out refusing even while still in a high chair. I did not want the marrow of someone other than my own mother.

Freshly brewed coffee dancing aromatic notes through my Bed & Breakfast parlors invited the guests to meander downstairs to the breakfast table. Quickly, I went to slather essential oils behind my ears, trying to regroup with roses and vetiver, the only scents that could bring me back down to earth and back to my muffin recipe and to the inn. “Oh you smell so good,” one guest remarked. “Thank you,” not telling them about my existential crisis over the muffin batter earlier that morning. “Want some more coffee?” I quickly moved the moment back to serving breakfast. 

Once everyone checked out, I was left alone with my earlier panic attack and temporary fix of essential oils. I bolted for the shower, thirsty for the hot water to soothe my distress and wash away the lies, secrets, and my quote unquote delusions.