What’s That Smell?

What were your father’s last words? In the hospital bed, before he passed on, he told you he smelled cardamom. Within that sterile room redolent of disinfectants, his mind conjured memories of the magic pod.

I too dream of cardamom. I don’t think of using it while cooking. None of the recipes require it. I no longer drink Turkish coffee. But in bed, after a long night of dreams, I sometimes wake up with nostrils inhaling the spice’s soft scent.

It is not just the land that binds us, not just the red earth, the fig tree, the lemon, or the olive. It’s more than the city of Beirut, the surrounding mountains, or the Mediterranean. You and I are bound together with the aroma of cardamom.

And cloves.

Saffron.