Sunday, October 02, 2005

Jumbo Roll

'Just wondering if anyone else can call up the scent of Charmin toilet paper on demand and if it invokes in them the same sense memory that it does for me....
I have many many memories associated with smells--Granma's Shalimar, Papa's kitchen, Mom's gardenias--but none so readily available as those associated with a roll of Charmin. It is not a complicated nostalgia: an image of my childhood home, the second floor bathroon by my room, a feeling of total security, that all was right and would ever be so.
I just have to think that all of us - humans, at least - might have a sense memory for something that invokes feelings of simple childhood well-being. A scent, a texture, a sound, a color can take us to a place where we were once safe from and safe in the world.
Within our hearts - even the adult ones - there must surely be a recognition that every child has the capacity for and human right to feel well-being. Can we all agree that, all children get at least a moment or two of physical and psychological safety?
Can that include safety from
ex-secretaries of education de-valuing the lives of generations yet unborn? Can we extend that particular right to the rest of us?
Whether we are black or white or Indian or Pakistani or Jewish or Muslim or Tibetan or Chinese, certainly there was a time for each of us when were pre-hatred -- from others and for others. Can we all take a sec and remember when that was, what it felt like, maybe associate that memory with something that surrounded us at the time, a mother's arms, sunlighton summer grass, a wooly blanket, gospel music on the radio? Pre-hatred, folks...for those who simply can't get back there on their own, I am offering a coupon for a jumbo roll of Charmin...Let's try this. O.K?

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