The Cotton Bag

Today, I purchased a cotton shoulder bag with block printed patterns on it.
It took me a while before deciding to make this purchase, mostly because I figured a cotton bag wouldn’t be anything special, plus it’s not like I have so much spare money on my hand.
I must make a confession too: the image of an Indian (well, it’s an Indian lady in my head) manufacturing this bag was always in the back of my mind; she probably sold it to the guy who was now selling it to me for 3 times less the price than how much I paid him for it.
And of course, all the vague knowledge about free trade was also flowing in the back of my mind. It bothered me a tiny bit more when he told me, honestly I guess, that it wasn’t free trade between him and those Indian families, but “there are so many corruptions in India, it’s kinda sad...really sad actually”.
Well, I bought the bag at the end, nonetheless.
I think I despise myself a little for it, for paying this man for some poor Indian lady’s labor. But here’s the thing,

there’s the distinct smell of this bag that I couldn’t really resist.

When I first smelt it, I had to stop and recollect my thoughts for a bit to come to recognition of this smell. This distinct, and almost nostalgic smell.
It’s the smell of paint—not the paint that you paint houses or walls with, but paints that we, well, play with, in arts class in kindergarten and elementary school. The smell is very similar to black ink too.
Ever since then, the smell was stuck, in me. You see, I have to even write about it.
You might think “yea, she’s gonna say that the smell brings back memories and all that”...well, that’s the thing, I don’t have much memory of me and the paint with this smell, I don’t even know what type of paint it is. In fact, I am not even certain that it is actually from the type of paint that I used to make arts with when I was small. But that smell is so distinct, so familiar, yet our encounter seems to be from literally ages ago. The smell is so familiar and cozy to the point where I feel like I have just retrieved some important part of myself from beneath my consciousness. How can this be, when I don’t even recall having any special experiences with this paint, or whatever it is? How can something feel so dear to me when I never had a deep relationship with it, or when I never made any significant accomplishment with it? Even if it is the paint that I used when I was in kindergarten, but it is nothing so significant like I continued with a passion of painting till now, nor have I made any nice artwork with this paint that I still have in possession right now. Yet this smell... is so imprinted somewhere in my heart.
I couldn’t resist it for the smell is so endearing and familiar, but so enigmatic at the same time.
Then I came to realize, there are so many things like this—a one-way fascination—that I have towards other things that I barely have any real relationship with.
Other than towards some exceptionally attractive individuals, I would say that this applies to my fantasy towards my ambitions, dreams, favourite places(the interesting part is, some of them I have never even been to, or have only been to once) too, in which I haven’t made much of an impact with yet, but they are so special and darling to me that it’s like I have a special place in my heart for them.
At some point, I have come down to feeling a little silly, because this form of fantasy almost parallels with a little girl’s craze towards her idol celebrity; trivial also, because I am relating myself to something so fantastic, yet it has nothing, really, to do with me, or what I have done.
That sense of insignificance, worthlessness...
The description of my feelings towards the particular smell from my newly purchased cotton bag can illustrate my similar feeling towards God.

I haven’t offered, or done much. By saying this, I even feel a little bit more worthless. But here’s the wonder and beauty of it all: God might be a stranger to you, and you might feel as if you were a stranger to Him as well, but once you really step in forward, even just a little more, take a sniff, all of a sudden it’ll become so clear and so familiar. It might feel strange and clueless at first, just like that mysterious smell of my bag, but that closeness that I feel with this smell is just irresistible, and so is Him. The difference lies in how God in turn makes me feel: even though I feel worthless as me, as a human being, and for the fact that I haven’t done anything for Him, but in return, He immediately grants me with all the worthiness I need to feel from the world.

Well, that was my story of the cotton bag, nothing crazy.