sunscreen

it all falls into place.
last year, at this time while studying for finals, i'd put on coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion to motivate me and to calm me down.
i dont need sunscreen. during finals week i rarely leave my house. i dont burn, i brown, so i have no use for it. but that doesnt hold me back. these things never do.

how it all falls into place.
last semester we finished neuroanatomy and when we had finished, we learned about the limbic system, how it is associated with memories, how the olfactory system is connected to it and so on. moral of the story: smells are quite often associated with memories.

when i was four years old, going on five, my mother's best friend would take us to the local lake. it had a beach. her children, my brother, and i would play in the sand, jump around in the water and frolick in our little bathing suits. but before we frolicked, she would lather coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion on our little waterbaby bodies.

two summers ago, before i left for university, i was wandering through costco as i often do with my family.
and sitting perched near the checkout lanes, was bottle after bottle of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion.
it looked familiar so i opened it and smelled it.
and when i smelled it, i sort of squealed with joy. in that instance i knew, as we all do. we just know. i knew that this bottle of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen was the same i had used fourteen years ago on a little beach far far away. i knew that in fourteen years, coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion hadn't changed their formula. i knew that i had to buy it. because it smelled of summer. nothing smells like summer the way coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion does.

and so,

i bought it and when i began to study for exams and got disheartened at the sheer amount of material and my general lack of interest in it, i'd squirt a little bit of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion, and just like that everything would be ok again.

i took it home for the summer and forgot to bring it back with me. and now, as i study for finals i have nothing to calm my troubled nerves and it surely is a troubling thought.