Ivory Soap

My Grandma was one of the most liberated women I ever knew. She was tiny and fussy and capable of doing absolutely anything she set her mind to. We are exactly fifty years apart in age and I grew up adoring her.

For some reason I did not understand until today, this place I call home keeps bringing up memories of the small brick house she built when she turned the Big House into a guest home for elderly ladies. The Little House, as we called it, had a huge picture window in the front, pink living room with up lights over the windows, and a huge eat in kitchen that had room for whoever showed up for the meals my Aunt cooked. Grandma was really not much of a cook. She made hockey puck hamburgers and, on a good night, opened cans of sweet peaches for dessert. Aunt Lela could make anything. Thank goodness they lived together.

But what I remember is the scent of Ivory soap whenever I came across the little T that separated the bedrooms from the rest of the house. Grandma liked Ivory soap. She never used anything else and unless she spritzed her Chanel No. 5 on, Ivory soap was her special scent. As a child I thought this was pretty uncool. After all, in our house we used Irish Spring and then there was Lifebuoy or Zest, but I don't recall how any of those smell.

Today most of us use bottled soap, so there is not much to smell. Instead they sell all sorts of bathroom sprays and fresheners. When I first moved in here I didn't have enough money to buy anything extra, which hasn't changed much. So, when faced with putting some sort of soap on the bathroom lavatory, I dug up an all natural, inexpensive soap I had stashed away some time ago. That is what I smell. Simple, ordinary, clean, old soap. Imagine that! It is nice...and it reminds me of Grandma.