way. She was muscular and somewhat wiry. Any roundness that tried to sneak its way onto her as she began to age was promptly exercised or starved off. Once Necie turned to Mama and asked mildly, “Vivi, why do you insist on staying so thin? We’re not eighteen anymore.” My mother responded, as though it made perfect sense, “I want light baggage when I decide to blow this joint.”
When I close my eyes, I can see my mother’s body in front of me exactly as it looked in my childhood. I can hear her part-Scarlett, part-Katharine Hepburn, part-Tallulah voice, in all its rich, smoky nuance.
I know nothing of her naked body as it is now. I have heard rumors that she finally “filled out a little,” but I have no proof. I have not seen her body without clothes in over twenty years. I do not know if I would recognize her body if her face and voice were hidden from me, and this makes me sad.
When I think now of the Vivi of my girlhood, I am overwhelmed. She gave birth to four children—five if you count my twin who died—in three years and nine months. That means from the time she married, her body never had a chance to settle down from the wild hormonal tangos of pregnancy. It means that she was sleep-deprived for five or six straight years. And Lord knows Mama is a woman who loved her sleep (as I do mine). She used to say she could taste sleep and that it was as delicious as a BLT on fresh French bread.
Even as a child you knew that she was not the kind of woman meant to have four stair-step kids. You would stand next to her and know you were asking too much even as you tugged and begged and insisted, “Look at me, Mama! Watch me do this , Mama. Now watch me do this .”
But during those summers, my mother was a goddess ofthe creekbank with her girlfriends. Some days I worshipped at her feet. Some days I would have split her wide open just to get the attention she gave the Ya-Yas. Some days I was so jealous I wished Caro, Teensy, and Necie dead. Other days, from their spots on the picnic blankets, Mama and her buddies were the pillars that held up the heavens.
Here in this cabin, twenty-five hundred miles from Louisiana, and many years from my girlhood, if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can smell my mother and the Ya-Yas. It is as though my own body keeps the scents of the Ya-Yas simmering on some back burner, and at the most unexpected moments, the aroma rises up and joins with the fragrance of my current life to make a new-old perfume. The soft aroma of old worn cotton from a linen chest; the lingering smell of tobacco on an angora sweater; Jergen’s hand lotion; sautéed green peppers and onions; the sweet, nutty smell of peanut butter and bananas; the oaken smell of good bourbon; a combination of lily of the valley, cedar, vanilla, and somewhere, the lingering of old rose. These smells are older than any thought. Mama, Teensy, Necie, and Caro, each one of them had an individual scent, to be sure. But this is the gumbo of their scents. This is the Gumbo Ya-Ya. This is the internal vial of perfume I carry with me everywhere I go.
The four of their scents were in key . Their very bodies harmonized together.
Surely this made it easier for them to forget things and forgive each other, not to have to constantly “work” on things, the way we do now. This has never happened for me with a group of women. It is hard for me to even imagine. Yet I have seen it. I have smelled it.
Mama’s perfume is a scent that was created for her by Claude Hovet, the perfumier in the French Quarter, when she was sixteen. A gift from Genevieve Whitman, it is a scent that is softly shocking and deeply moving. A scent that disturbsme and delights me. It smells like ripe pears, vetiver, a bit of violet, and something else—something spicy, almost biting and exotic.
Once the scent caught me on the street in Greenwich Village. I stopped in my tracks and looked around. Where was it coming from? A shop? The trees? A passerby? I could
When I close my eyes, I can see my mother’s body in front of me exactly as it looked in my childhood. I can hear her part-Scarlett, part-Katharine Hepburn, part-Tallulah voice, in all its rich, smoky nuance.
I know nothing of her naked body as it is now. I have heard rumors that she finally “filled out a little,” but I have no proof. I have not seen her body without clothes in over twenty years. I do not know if I would recognize her body if her face and voice were hidden from me, and this makes me sad.
When I think now of the Vivi of my girlhood, I am overwhelmed. She gave birth to four children—five if you count my twin who died—in three years and nine months. That means from the time she married, her body never had a chance to settle down from the wild hormonal tangos of pregnancy. It means that she was sleep-deprived for five or six straight years. And Lord knows Mama is a woman who loved her sleep (as I do mine). She used to say she could taste sleep and that it was as delicious as a BLT on fresh French bread.
Even as a child you knew that she was not the kind of woman meant to have four stair-step kids. You would stand next to her and know you were asking too much even as you tugged and begged and insisted, “Look at me, Mama! Watch me do this , Mama. Now watch me do this .”
But during those summers, my mother was a goddess ofthe creekbank with her girlfriends. Some days I worshipped at her feet. Some days I would have split her wide open just to get the attention she gave the Ya-Yas. Some days I was so jealous I wished Caro, Teensy, and Necie dead. Other days, from their spots on the picnic blankets, Mama and her buddies were the pillars that held up the heavens.
Here in this cabin, twenty-five hundred miles from Louisiana, and many years from my girlhood, if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can smell my mother and the Ya-Yas. It is as though my own body keeps the scents of the Ya-Yas simmering on some back burner, and at the most unexpected moments, the aroma rises up and joins with the fragrance of my current life to make a new-old perfume. The soft aroma of old worn cotton from a linen chest; the lingering smell of tobacco on an angora sweater; Jergen’s hand lotion; sautéed green peppers and onions; the sweet, nutty smell of peanut butter and bananas; the oaken smell of good bourbon; a combination of lily of the valley, cedar, vanilla, and somewhere, the lingering of old rose. These smells are older than any thought. Mama, Teensy, Necie, and Caro, each one of them had an individual scent, to be sure. But this is the gumbo of their scents. This is the Gumbo Ya-Ya. This is the internal vial of perfume I carry with me everywhere I go.
The four of their scents were in key . Their very bodies harmonized together.
Surely this made it easier for them to forget things and forgive each other, not to have to constantly “work” on things, the way we do now. This has never happened for me with a group of women. It is hard for me to even imagine. Yet I have seen it. I have smelled it.
Mama’s perfume is a scent that was created for her by Claude Hovet, the perfumier in the French Quarter, when she was sixteen. A gift from Genevieve Whitman, it is a scent that is softly shocking and deeply moving. A scent that disturbsme and delights me. It smells like ripe pears, vetiver, a bit of violet, and something else—something spicy, almost biting and exotic.
Once the scent caught me on the street in Greenwich Village. I stopped in my tracks and looked around. Where was it coming from? A shop? The trees? A passerby? I could
Similar Books
