Memories and Mom Smells

My daughters love the smell of the inside of my purse, and have since they were little. A timeless fascination—they say it smells like chewing gum and lipstick. It’s a mom smell, I think. For as long as I can remember, I am never without a pack of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, an ancient tube of lipstick and Kleenex. My mom had Kleenex, too. Always in the interior zip, covered in blots of her lipstick and offered at every sneeze or sniffle, and you know what? It ever smelled like lipstick and gum.