Suntan Lotion

Suntan lotion, for me, is one of the most distinct smells in the world, although I'm not even sure exactly what it smells like. There's definitely some coconut in there, which is nice, but it's not just that; it's got so much more in there. So much that adds to its uniqueness that I don't think anyone has ever said "Something smells like suntan lotion" and been surprised when the something they were smelling was something other than suntan lotion. It's like the scent of coffee, marijuana, cucumber melon lotion from Bath and Body Works, or patriotism. You don't confuse it with anything else.

I value the smell of suntan lotion. So much so that I'll call it my smell. I'm not saying I smell like suntan lotion (because I've been told I smell like the inside of a Panera Bread, no joke, and this person didn't mean it as an insult, which means they must really dig freshly baked bread equipped with a smaller-than-average penis). I'm saying that when I smell suntan lotion, I immediately have these flashbacks of some of the great times I've had earlier in my life. It's like when I smell it, I can no longer concentrate on whatever it was I was doing before it wafted into my nostrils. These flashbacks are to things I seldom think about anymore and, in some cases, even actively try to forget, but suntan lotion shows no mercy. It's kind of like I'm an amnesiac getting little bits of my memory back in a more vivid way than I was really prepared for. I'd compare it to the final episode of "Lost," when the characters were living in one life (purgatory or some shit, who knows?), but are somehow connected to their other life/dimension/whatever, but they don't remember it. The only way they begin to remember is they have these epiphanies that happen when they touch someone else that was special to them on the island, or if they see something that reminds them of it. When it happens, they completely forget everything else except some extremely happy moment (which were few and far between, during both an adolescence trying to figure out girls as well as being stranded and defenseless on a tropical island), when it seemed to them it couldn't get any better. From what I could tell by watching the show, these people could feel that same happiness just by looking back on these moments, like they were experiencing them again.



That's what my flashbacks are like. I smell this lotion, and I'm totally useless to speak to the people around me for the next, like 10-15 minutes. I get swept back to a certain moment and feel just like I felt during it, and then I spend the subsequent minutes trying to send myself back there. It's like when you have one of those dreams where you're banging Giselle Bundchen and when you wake up you try and fall immediately back to sleep so she can finish you off. (Let's be honest, that's why dreams are sweet. Because you wake up having not finished and can pat yourself on the back for going at it without exploding with Giselle for the entire dream, which lasted much longer than the 8.3 seconds it would take you to shoot one off in real life.) I completely forget that the woman --and yes, it's almost always women, because suntan lotion doesn't remind me of the great times I've had with dudes-- and I didn't work out because of either my own stupidity, or her own stupid whorishness, borishness or, well, irrationality. Sometimes because of all four. I forget all these things and think about how, in that moment, she seemed perfect, and us being there doing whatever it was we were doing (usually making out) resulted in an extreme happiness I haven't really felt in the past few years.

I think about a time right after I finished high school when I was with a girl at the beach. I think about a time when I was with a girl at a swimming pool the next summer. I think about a time when I was only 13 years old at that same pool, kissing a girl by a basketball court there. I think about the time I went on a cruise with my family and hooked up with the #2 ranked high school swimmer in the state of Connecticut. (Or so she said. I don't really care one way or another. She was good looking. Also, I realize this one doesn't really fit into my whole sappy talk about "perfection," but it was still elating.) I think about the time when I was eight years old, and I would spend the day at a different pool watching the first love of my young life leap off the diving board. How do I know I was eight? Because she was always wearing a USA Olympics one piece, and I was eight the summer of 1996, when the Olympics were held in Atlanta and some dude tried to blow some shit up. I remember these things. (This girl is now married, for what it's worth.)

When I remember these things, I get all giddy, like a little schoolgirl, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. This is most likely because I no longer get that giddy feeling. I get nervous about dates, sure, but the amount of fist pumping I throw out after a first kiss has drastically declined in the past few years. I worry that, as I get older, this excitement will disappear completely, and that I'll never be able to find it. Other things have taken the excitement's place (mainly booze and the viewing of chick flicks), and maybe there's not so much room for it in the world I live in now, which is the world of the adult. I'm nostalgic, to say the least, for a simpler and more fun time. I now have a full time job in a place where I know next to nobody. At this job, I have a desk that is cluttered with all kinds of things. A dictionary, like seven phone books, papers with phone numbers, yellow legal pads and a couple of coffee cups. There are no pictures of a significant other, someone who makes me really excited and makes me feel like I can come even close to an emotional state of perfection. I guess I don't feel that excitement because I have to take other things seriously now. There was a time when the pursuit of this excitement was the thing I took most seriously. Somehow, that has been replaced by a self-centered desire for my own success.

The last time I smelled sunscreen, the time that made me think so much about all of this, I was at an assignment for this job of mine (that I happen to really like, by the way...I don't want to give the wrong impression). I smelled it out of nowhere, and was immediately thrown into a flashback to that time at the pool (you can guess as to which one it was), and I felt the excitement. Then, for the next ten minutes, I was completely out of it. I didn't know what was going on around me at all.

And I realized that there was nothign wrong with that.