The Scents of my Childhood

My husband and I recently attended an evening gala where we were seated at a table with soon-to-be college graduates of the class of 2013. We struck up a conversation with the young men and one of them politely asked my husband, “What was the music that was at the top of the charts when you were a student here?” My husband answered, “I’m not a maven. I don’t remember what the top song was last week!” We all at the table got a chuckle from his response. It made me think not just of the songs that were popular when I was younger, but of another sensory experience that always lovingly reminds me of remembrances gone by. Certain smells can hit me when I least expect it and bring with them a flood of memories: some sweet, some sour, some crisp, and some faint. Only my nose and the deep recesses of my brain know the true and total story of these smells. For example, whenever I smell a fire burning, like from someone’s chimney, it reminds me of when I was about six or seven, still barely believing in Santa Claus, and leaving him cookies near our fireplace in our family room. Every autumn, my dad would order pieces of wood from a nearby farm and have them stacked in our backyard. He would then spend the winter burning the logs a couple at a time in our fireplace while watching a game, a Western or a VHS movie on the weekend. I would join him with my coloring book, markers and colored pencils, in my footed (or footie) pajamas and lay by the warm fire, enjoying my time with my dad and smelling the embers and smoke. It was our chill time, which I will always cherish.

Whenever I smell a strong bleach odor, it reminds me of my junior high school bathrooms and how the janitor would clean them and that smell of bleach would just linger on, chokingly. Certain perfumes that I may catch walking in a mall or being around a group of older women will remind me of being in the beauty salon on a weekday night or Saturday morning – which would likely turn into afternoon – to get my hair done with my mom and little sister. Those were times when we would get to eat fast food because we knew we would be captive in the shop for a couple of hours due to our beautician’s misunderstanding of the purpose of appointments. I remember smelling perfume, perm (or relaxer), and French fries.

When it rains, and there is this moist, woodsy smell in the air, no matter what the season, it reminds me of spring when the first peeks of warm weather would hit our suburb and you just knew bike riding, Girl Scout camping trips, and playing till the streetlights came on was in the near future.

There are other smells that visit me and I can’t quite place them with the corresponding memory, but I know it in my subconscious to be good or bad. As important as music is to our lives, beyond the senses of sight, sound and touch, I think smell or olfaction is the most mysterious and we take it for granted unless we are smelling something succulent like buttery breakfast pancakes, roasted red potatoes with rosemary, a hot chocolate with whipped cream, or a 7-Up pound cake…we are starving. Comparatively, humans have a weak sense of smell when measured against others in the animal kingdom. But for us, certain scents can leave an imprint on our minds, hearts, and souls especially when we are young enough to pay attention and take a whiff.