Some smells are place specific. I remember the first time I was away from home at college. I hadn't realized that home had a smell. I first realized when one of my roommates started cooking something by sauteing onions and I was instantly transported, you know, like Anton Ego style when he takes a bite of the ratatouille... yeah. I guess my mom sauteed onions a lot. It happened again when I returned home for the first time for a visit, but this time it was the evening canyon breeze coming through the kitchen window. It smelled of pines and a freshly mown lawn, and maybe a hint of faraway skunk. It filled my head with memories of sleeping out on the trampoline, digging for fishing worms in the garden after dark, and climbing our willow tree to sit on the still-warm garage roof to watch the stars come out.
Other smells are season specific --like the smell of fresh cut grass and the oil they use to burn lines into the soccer fields --that takes me back to various years that I played, both city league and in high school. Even though I haven't played for more than 10 years, at the beginning of each new school year I smell it and it makes me want to run around and get grass stains.
One of my seasonal favorites is new Spring grass. When I was young we had rabbits and we would feed them handfuls of the stuff as soon as it sprang up. I remember how eagerly they would pull it from our fingers as we stuffed it through the wires of their pens and munch it one blade after another. The smell was pure green, if green had a smell, and every spring I still make sure that I grab a handful of the stuff for my annual dose of time-travel; back to when I had no cares in the world, wore sun-suits and Jellies, and played with My Little Ponies (yes, I was a child of the 80's)
Another Spring smell that takes me back to my earliest memories is that of the smoke from when the migrant workers would come and burn the grass and winter debris out of the ditches to unclog them for irrigation. I even have an image that comes to my head when I smell that smell: the perspective is from either my tricycle or hoppity-horse, out on the pavement under the basketball standard to the side of our house --before the garage was there, watching the smoke rise from the ditch that ran along the road under a line of huge old trees that don't exist anymore.
Ah yes. I could go on and on, but it's late, and I shouldn't stay up much longer. I'll have to do time-travel posts every so often, whenever I smell something that transports me somewhere.
What smells take you to other times and places?
2 comments:
My dad worked for Hostess for years. Now, every time I smell (or see) a Twinkie or Ding Dong, it takes me right back to my youth. (Again, I am obsessed with food!!)
Mmmm. :) You made me miss childhood. I'm reading this, listening to a faraway train whistle, and I can almost picture myself at home. Good thing you didn't write like this while I was in Austria, I would have gotten homesick for sure!
Smell: Mom's/Grandma's spaghetti sauce cooking on a rainy day. The smells of the sauce and the rain-and maybe autumn leaves or new school supplies-all mixing together.
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