I have a hard time buying perfume because nothing smells quite like Shalimar

In the summers of my youth I stood in Nana’s bathroom, cool in the Florida heat. Pads of bare feet on clean, white tile. Face reflecting in infinite mirrors, I trailed a finger over regal, round pearls and sprayed the Shalimar she doused and drenched herself in. Shalimar to cover the smell of cigarette ash and smoke lacing the air as she filled out Crosswords and drank coca cola from the thick glass bottles she saved in the Garage. Red nails clamoring marble countertops. Timeless beauty and blue eyes and a grand piano. Her laugh cascaded through my childhood bouncing off vases of olive shells and tall ceilings with windowed walls. She pinched perogies, licking Her fingers to turn black and white photographed cook books. She kept them in a sleek cabinet she bought travelling, Japanese maples hand painted on. She ate very little and called everything divine. She once met Jackie Kennedy in Ohio, who complimented her sunglasses. She is delicacy and beauty and all things exquisite even though now I understand her harsh politics and carelessness when she has four daughters she moved away from and one of them is dying. She merits my beuaty more than my mind. I'm reminded of her in italian opera that shakes through car speakers. My eyes silently spill over whenever I drive away from her because she made me and I won’t have her forever.