Coming to my sense

I am visiting my mom with my girls after our New England hockey jaunt.  We had fun watching the team and since their games wrapped up in Connecticut I figured we would stop by and visit my family on our way back to VA.  It's been nice.  I am getting to see my niece.  I haven't seen her in two years easily.  The visit has been really wonderful so far.

Last night I made my way upstairs to wash my makeup off and get ready for bed.  As I was washing my face I was suddenly back in my Nanny's house.  The sensation was so strong I needed to hurry up and wash the soap out of my eyes and look around to make certain I was indeed in my mother's bathroom.  It dawned on me it was the soap.  Nan used nothing but Dove soap, the white kind, and I was using the same at her daughter's, my mother's house.  The smell of that soap was so distinctive, that it took just washing my face to be back in Nan's old, green bathroom.  The memory was so vivid I was convinced I could hear my Nan humming, as she always did, right there behind me while I finished rinsing my face.  I have to admit I was smiling when I was done.

It got me thinking about other smells that will bring you to another place or time.  Like if I smell diesel fuel.  The odor of diesel fuel being burned by a truck or bus will instantly transport me back to my summer trip through Europe.  We traveled by bus, sometimes for long stretches, and we'd smell that exhaust quite a bit.  But I can be sitting in my car at a traffic light next to a diesel vehicle and that smell is enough to have me on the bus with Patricia our tour guide talking us through what our next destination would be.  I can hear David Bowie on the bus radio and be giggling away with my seat mate and roommate Stephanie.  What a fantastic experience that summer was for me at 16 and how lucky am I to get to live through that just for a split second every time I smell diesel??

They say the sense of smell is the one that can evoke the strongest response from people.  I believe it.

Don't get me started on Thanksgiving smells.  My mouth just started watering at the thought of all of them!  That roasted turkey smell is so homey to me.  Another thing that puts me at Nan's house.  I still wonder how Nan managed to fit our ever expanding family in her dining room.  It seemed expansive once upon a time, but when I look back now it is pretty amazing that we all squeezed in!

As I was making bacon as part of our lunch, my 13 year old came up and started smiling.  She said to me, not realizing what I was blogging about, you know what the smell of bacon reminds me of mom? It reminds me of Pop!  Do you remember how he would steal pieces of bacon even when he wasn't allowed to eat it and Nan would start yelling at him?  She went on to reminisce about her favorite Pop moments.  The smell of bacon cooking was enough to bring my daughter to a time and place that brought her such happy memories. It made all of us laugh, what a great moment to share.  All from the smell of bacon cooking.

I posed the question to my other daughters. What smells do you like, what ones will bring back happy memories.  Heather piped up Pillow! She has a pillow case from this sheet set my Nan gave her that became her favorite thing ever.  She still snuggles with it and actually smells it to fall asleep. She explained to me it smells like home, whatever that smell is like for her.  But it's enough to comfort her and relax her to fall asleep from.  It is obviously a comfortably place.

Not all smells are good ones.  There are ones that do indeed bring you back in time, to a place you'd rather not visit.

I hate the smell of flowers, absolutely despise it, ever since my father's wake.  The funeral home was so packed with lovely floral arrangements.  They were really spectacular.  It brought the thought to mind why do we waste such beauty on someone who can't enjoy them?  I guess it brings up that line in my blog that funerals aren't really for the dead person are they?  But all I need to do is smell flowers and it makes me sad.  I told my husband after that time to not bring me home flowers.  I can tolerate roses, but that's about it.

I cannot stand the way hospitals smell.  Even if I am in them for a good reason, like when I had my babies, I cannot stand the smell.  My dad spent so much time in the hospital that that aneseptic-y smell, as soon as it hits my nose, is a smell that brings me to a not so good spot in my life.

Random smell I cannot tolerate, Downy fabric softener.  When I was pregnant with my first daughter the smell of Downy was enough to make me barf, so was the smell of dirty hair that needed washing and newspaper print, go figure.  To this day I cannot smell Downy, the other two don't bother me as much.  But they all do remind me of being pregnant.

I believe my other senses don't move me to memory the way my sniffer does. My mom told me about her favorite supermarket and how it plays 50's music from time to time, that was her time. She got laughing when she said she was there the other day and caught a couple doing the Lindy in the condiments aisle.

I would have loved to have seen that!  It got me thinking, maybe her ears and music are to her what my nose and smells are for me!

Well there's the timer going off!  I have to go take the birthday cake we are baking for Heather out of the oven.  The smell is absolutely heavenly.....