The world on the tip of your nose

   Since our birth we are surrounded by different scents: gentle warmth of your mama's skin, vanilla aroma of homemade buns, fascinating shades of spring flowers' blossom fragrance, sea breeze at the dawn... We live through the smells. Indeed, not everyone has that magic ability of detecting the slightest scents like Zuskind's perfumer. But for some strange reason even years and years after we can easily "remember" the scent of the past that surprisingly stayed with us forever in our memories.               
   Oh, this amazing smell of just baked Russian bread that makes you feel so warm! Even now I can still vividly picture my way back home from school. Winter. Severe Siberian cold. My red cheeks. Freezing air lightly pinching those childish cheeks. And I'm rushing home back to a cup of sweet hot tea and fluffy warm quilt. But while passing by a bakery I'm subconsciously slowing down to inhale the warmth of this loaf, to get a lungful of fresh aroma and enjoy. Incredible!         
   I close my eyes and move myself in mind to the bank of a river. It's fall. Shilka has raised. A perfect time to go fishing. We're comfortably sitting in a boat holding a couple of handmade fishing rods and a tin of worms. My grandpa is patiently watching the quiet water surface. One minute, two, three...splash! Gotcha! Here it is tiny chabachok (we gently call these fish species this way) on the bottom of the scratchy old boat. I'm carefully taking the fish off the hook trying to avoid hurting it. Later in the evening we are coming back with a solid catch and our hands covered with fish scales are all smelling the victory!               
   I shut my eyes again and see a big table served with New Year delicacies: Russian salads, assorted meat, homemade pickles, champagne sparkling in a glass and a strong aroma of tangerines that filling the silence of a cozy warm room. My mum and I are waiting for the clock to strike midnight. The scent of a pine and expectancy of a miracle is everywhere. It's the scent of a feast.    
   Interestingly how scents become brighter and more vivid as the time goes by. Maybe it's because of the fact that during all this time you have already felt their variety and strength and learnt how to select the most important ones. Or maybe simply because of the big amount of memories that piled up in your head? Crazy summer. Warm inviting sea of Cyprus. The scent of joy, olives and tart sweetness of red wine. That feeling of freedom, when you are young and carefree. Smile of a friend and sensation of an eternal holiday. It's the scent of youth.       
   Season by season changes the colors of life. One more summer. One more sea. It's time to sit at the seashore and set your thoughts free to the night sky, inhale the smell of slowness and harmony. It's time to stroll along the Turkish streets on your own and let the piquant aroma of spices and oriental sweets wrap your soul from inside.            
   Again I close the eyes for a moment. Passionate kiss, tenderness of hugs, warmth of his hand. Nights with no sleep accompanied by the rhythm of Afro beats. The smell of fried wings, peanuts, boiled crabs and sticky nsima. Hugs again, loving eyes and fragrance of hot Malawian coffee. Apparently, there is no better scent than a scent of the closest person you have sincere feelings for. It's a scent of love. 
  But this scent would be incomplete like that coffee without a spoon of sugar. You will give the most exquisite scents on earth, the most fragrant smells in this world just for the missing ingredient. Everything for a piece of a sunny smile, for a sonorous laughter, for a velvety cheek, for a soft palm, for a tiny sweet foot. Only scent of the most precious dearest little human is able to complete the bouquet of this aroma. The aroma of HAPPINESS. The most amazing thing that it's you who will become the first and the most valuable guide to this big world for him, as well as your own mother did once some time ago...because since our birth we are surrounded by different scents...