It happens from time to time.

I wake up to the thick, strong smell of old perfume. That kind of heavy old perfume smell that reminds you of a great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother from long ago.

It is distinct enough to pull me awake, often around 2:30 in the morning.

I get these visitors every now and then. I think of them as transient visitors from long ago.

When it happens, I wonder who it is, why I am being visited, or why I am meant to be summoned awake at that exact hour.

There is a quiet strangeness to it, but not a threatening one.

Just because it is an old perfume smell does not mean it is automatically an ancestor from long before I could remember.

It could be how someone, or something, wanted to get my attention. It could be a transient visitor passing through. It could be something else entirely.

The important part is not forcing the experience into a conclusion it has not earned.

Sometimes an experience simply is what it is in the moment.

There is no need to over-analyze it, dramatize it, or turn it into something darker than it feels.

Whatever it was, it meant no harm.