I Smell and Remember
2006-12-16 | Filed Under Participatory Books |
Have you ever had a smell trigger a memory or story? Are there certain smells that bring back a place? A time? A person? Your childhood? Your first love? What are those smells? What are those stories?Tell me a smell and a story and I’ll illustrate it …
7 Responses to “I Smell and Remember”
When my dog is relaxed he smells like cornchips. I don’t know why. I’ve never known another dog like this, though someone once told me that when her dog was sleeping her paws smelled like popcorn.
Now whenever snacks are around I think of my dog. I can see him sleeping next to me on the bed, with his little head on shoulder.
I didn’t have a boyfriend until I got to college. I was slow in developing. So, when I finally started catching up I was with people who were way more advanced than me.
My first boyfriend was a guy who hung out a lot in his dorm room and in the cafeteria. I don’t think he went to many classes and he dropped out after his freshman year, telling his parents that he had “bigger fish to fry.” He drank beer and smoked pot. He didn’t shave and wore flannel shirts. I’m not sure if he bathed everyday. He certainly didn’t wear deodorant.
We didn’t go out very long. Maybe just a few weeks. I was at a party when another girl, a sophomore, approached and mentioned in conversation that he was going out with her roommate too.
I was heartbroken. But, for years after, everytime a smelly drunk person sat next to me, or I smelled day old beer the morning after a party, I would get nostalgic and sentimental.
liquorice (sp?) is ruined forever for me. one whiff is all it take to bring me back dry mouthed waking up under a hot rising sun my brain total mush. i look over to see my friend, i don’t even remember falling asleep which is when i sit up which is when i realize i am on the flat roof of a small hut. the last thing i remember is our 16 year old selves at the house of much older guys doing shot of ouzo the greek national drink which smells like liquorice and me projectile vomiting acorss the small white room unable to even get up off the pillow i was sitting on. (did i mention we were in greece living on a camping ground for a few weeks?). it was our first night there and apparently the last night we would do shots…that morning unable to recall anything i woke my friend up who mumbled that we’d been driven almost home — she’d dragged me to the camp site and then, afraid of all the ants she saw crawling on me once i’d crumpled to the ground and peacefully started snorning, she’d lifted me, than herself to the safety of the roof we were now on.
what can i say…we did not know or respect the power of ouzo. i did not know that almost 20 years later it’s reach would be so great that even today i cannot smell liquorice without feeling queasy.
remembering
the smell of stop bath & fixer
luring me
secured
in the darkroom
turpentine and pigment
transporting my body & mind
on canvas
innately
journeying to that place
Solitude
salvation.
Awakened
this dormant winter
your pungent sweat
penetrating night
quickly fades
from morning sheets
instinctively
I turn
retreat to loyal love
ink on press
metal to paper
Familiar
solace
I breath it in
passionately
tenderly
deeply.
There are smells that elicit such strong memories for me… The smell of an old, stighly damp car reminds me of old family drives with my Mom up to my grandparent’s house in our Dodge Colt. And even though I can’t really remember what he looked like, a pipe always makes me remember sitting with my grandfather, watching baseball games.
But really, it’s the offensive odors that get me.
I grew up a picky eater. OK, some might say I had a touch of the ocd as a kid when it came to food, but what kid doesn’t think that they won’t have a good bowel movement unless they eat the same thing everyday? Picky wasn’t even close.
If something didn’t smell right [and trust me, I inspected and sniffed every bite of food as a kid], there was no way I was going to eat it.
Around the time that my pet rabbit bit off the tip of my left index finger, I was learning how to read. And while I didn’t always know what words meant while I was sounding them out, once I heard the words said, I got their meaning.
Now, my mom had this desire to sustain us kids with all-natural foods growing up, which sort of contradicted the logic behind her insistance on using powdered milk, but for example: she preferred buying hot dogs that were from the deli/butcher and not those prepackaged ones. I never really liked the hot dog, but at that time I was reading anything I could get my eyes on. And once, while puttinig groceries away with mom, I struggled to read the ingredients on the all-natural hot dogs.
Here’s what the label read:
Ingredients: 100% all-natural beef hot dogs made from cows lips and other mechanically seperated parts.
And here are the only two words that matter in that list: cows and lips.
I have not eatten a hot dog since that day. I can’t stand to see one, but I most especially can’t stand to smell one! Especially the hot dogs that are cooked in a pot of water. Who cooks meat like that anyway?? - Ogiers, that’s who! And that’s who would eat a hot dog! Ogiers. And frat guys.
I literally gag and choke on just the smell of a hot dog.
So strong is the memory and the smell, that I have left at least one college frat party because hot dogs were being served and I could smell the nasty hot dog water permeating the air.
I am sure I offended whoever was hosting that fabulous frat party with my obnoxious, but very genuine, disgust and horror. But please, could there be a more nasty odor?
This is why I could never go to a bingo hall. Look on any menu at a bingo hall and what is the first thing you see?
Hot Dog - $xx.xx
The Soap Game
I love the smell of bar soap wrapped in paper.
When I was around 8 or 9, one of my favorite indoor activities was The Soap Game.
One player went inside the linen closet, where there was a small box full of bar soap on the floor (my parents were Depression babies and stockpiled everything.)
In the dark, you reached into the box, picked a bar of soap, and tried to guess its brand from its smell. Then the others opened the door to see if you were right.
Some were a dead giveaway, like Tone (it had a curvy shape), and one that smelled really medicinal.
Others were: Dial, Ivory, Safeguard, Irish Spring, Camay, Caress, Dove, and Zest.
I wanted my mom to buy Lava, but she wouldn’t.
My sister got so good she could smell the difference between white and orange Dial. Wow!
Nowadays bar soap is on the way out, and it comes wrapped in plastic or in boxes… a waste of packaging and impossible to sniff through.
But I still try… I love the smell of bar soap!
I smell and remember:
I was making some bacon to put on a pizza the other night and I’d not had
any bacon for a very long time. And even if I had I’d not cooked it or
smelled it cooking for years. Since we didn’t have anything else to put on
the pizza that night I grabbed the bacon, and for no other reason. As soon
as I started cooking it the smell of it was taking me back in time. I was
flying back to when I was about 12 or 13 when my parents like to go camping
a lot. We’d plan to leave early in the morning so the night before we’d be
all excited, mom, dad and me as I had no brother or sisters. We’d pack up
the camper which was a Starcraft, one that was hand cranked up and then the
bed areas folded out on each end. You could sleep 6. Mom packed it full of
food and we would get it all ready and go to bed early. At about 5 in the
morning we’d get up and grab our last few items. My last item was my
cassette player. This was around the mid 1960’s and they didn’t have
walkmans or Ipod’s etc….so I had a 8″ x 4″ cassette player with some
headphones. I’d made a tape from some of my records using a little
microphone or I’d sometimes even buy a cassette tape if I really liked the
band. The one I listened to at that time was Credence Clearwater Revival. Or
Deep Purple or Black Sabbath. We’d talk and have fun on the way to the camp
and most of the time we’d get there around noon. Dad would always have fun
trying to back up the camper…but he’d get it just right and we’d pile out
and start sitting it all up. I had been using the camper to “camp out” in
our own driveway with my friends so knew how to crank up the camper and get
it all going in about 10min or less.
I also brought along a few comic books. Old movies dad took around this time
shows me reading Top Cat….and I remember reading Sad Sack and maybe Hot
Stuff the little ghost and maybe Archie. Mom would spend most of her time
cooking on this little Colman gas stove. In the mornings I’d wake up to the
smell of bacon cooking and to this day that is what I remember when I smell
it. I also remember that the air was like super pure when you wake up in a
tent or camper. Very fresh.
I also remember I’d take my sting-ray bike with us and ride it around. Once
I rode it way up the road towards this park that had rides and a pool. Once
I heard a Rolling Stones Song blasting so loud I swore they were playing
live. But when I got near the front of the part it wasn’t even open yet. One
time I was riding back towards are camp site and thought I’d take a short
cut. I cut across a grassy area near some swing sets and was going a bit
downhill so was really flying. Then I noticed some poles right before the
road spaced out about 6 feet apart. So I aimed between some so I’d finally
hit the paved road. Just a moment before I went between the poles I realized
there was a cable strung across like a fence…which I couldn’t see till I
was right up on it. My bike hit that cable and I bounce off it flying back
into the grass. I was lucky it didn’t take my head off!
(you can leave out the last part about me almost killing myself if you want
to, as that really didn’t have anything to do with smells.)