The Nautica Sweatshirt

It was the year after maNga released Cambaz.

That song was everywhere for us. It belonged to that period so completely that even now, when I hear it, I do not only remember the music. I remember a certain kind of night, a certain kind of crowd, and the strange confidence of being young enough to believe that every New Year’s Eve might become unforgettable.

That year, we celebrated at an entertainment place.

I do not remember every detail of the night. Memory is unfair like that. It removes the important things and keeps small ones. I cannot clearly remember what we ate, what time we arrived, or who chose the place. But I remember the feeling of being surrounded by people, music, noise, smoke, laughter, and the excitement of waiting for midnight.

Later, we went to the house of someone from an upper class.

The house was incredibly crowded.

There were people everywhere. Someone was sitting on the floor, someone was trying to find a place on a sofa, someone was talking loudly over the music. Nobody really had enough space, but nobody seemed to care. At that age, comfort was not an important condition for happiness. If there was a roof, some friends, music, and somewhere to lie down for a few hours, the night was considered a success.

Özem gave me a Nautica sweatshirt.

I still remember that detail much more clearly than many larger things from the night.

She had sprayed perfume on it.

Maybe she did it casually. Maybe it meant something. Maybe I gave it more meaning later. Memory has a habit of changing the importance of small gestures.

But I remember the smell.

That is the strange thing.

Years pass and faces become less clear. Rooms disappear. Buildings change. You forget conversations that once seemed very important. But sometimes a smell survives everything.

For a while, that sweatshirt was not just a sweatshirt.

It carried the night with it.

The crowd, the cold outside, the music, the New Year, the feeling of being young, and Özem’s perfume were all somehow trapped in the fabric.

I think youth is often remembered through things like this.

Not through great achievements.

Not through important decisions.

Through a song.

A borrowed sweatshirt.

A crowded apartment.

A perfume that stays on the fabric longer than the night itself.

And perhaps that is why Cambaz still belongs to that winter for me.

Some songs do not become old.

They simply become doors.