Nostalgic Scents of the Past

Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay

To me, the most powerful scents are those that are capable of stirring up memories from within us. Those smells where, once it crosses path with your senses, you are magically teleported to a moment back in time... It is quite surreal, almost similar to experiencing the state of deja vu.

Personally, the smell of rain has always evoked such deep memories from my childhood. The scent of spring rain against the asphalt instantly takes me back to when I was a 6-year-old girl. I am ready to walk to school, and as I open our front door, my nostrils are immediately greeted by the fresh scent of an April morning shower. There is something very calming about it as it washes over my senses; cool and refreshing. Stretched out before me is an endless grey sky, abundant with thick, stormy clouds, a sky so dark that it resembles the night more than it does the morning. Despite its foreboding nature, the birds in the budding trees seem to happily rejoice in the rain's presence, chirping enthusiastically, and my younger self is still filled with calm. I am in kindergarten, my mother is about to walk with me to school, and I am excited about what the day will bring!

Another scent that has a similar effect on me is laundry detergent, but more specifically, that warm scent that is emitted when the laundry is drying. As a child, I can remember endless summer evenings spent running around the neighborhoods, catching an array of aromatic homecooked meals, but also the inviting scent of warm laundry air escaping from homes. There is something comforting about that simple chore; knowing that the day has ended, families are settling in for the night, and it is time to snuggle into a freshly dried blanket and sheets...
This is where another powerful memory is awoken within me. It is not a specific memory, but I am instantly transported to my bed, wrapped up in a huge, warm blanket, surrounded by stuffed animals! It has been a kind of sanctuary for me. No matter how bleak things seem, how dire my situation may be, I have always been able to find a sense of home within the scent of warm dryer sheets.

The last scent comes with a negative connotation, but it is again one that has been with me since I was very young. The scent of cigarette smoke is one that has been with me for so long, it has become embedded into my nostrils! I have been surrounded by it in the city that I have grown up in, multiple strangers going up to bystanders to ask for a light.
My grandparents on my mother's side were heavy smokers most of their lives; thankfully, they quit before my sister and I were born! However, the house in which they lived--a house that was constantly bombarded with smoke every day--became embedded with the stench of cigarettes. It made its home deep within the walls, tucked away within the furniture, seeped into all the clothes and linen... And although cleaning efforts were made, they were mostly done in vain. Cigarette smoke is one of the most difficult scents to be rid of!
So every time that I visited my grandparents as a child, I was immediately greeted by the wafting scent of smoke each time I entered their home. So pungent and overbearing, despite the fact no one had lit a cigarette in the house for over 15 years! Yet, it's funny, isn't it? When you are exposed to something long enough, you adjust and "get used to it." The same went for my grandparents. They had lived in that house for so long, exposed to the smell of smoke, that they could no longer notice it. Yet for me, it was one of the key features of the house! If their property was listed by a realtor, they would surely include "a rustic smell" in their description!
To this day, when I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke, I am instantly teleported back to my grandparents' house... Laying down on their couch, the inviting orange glow from the lamp filling the room, surrounded by Elvis and Johnny Cash memorabilia, the ticking of multiple clocks... Although there are some very bad memories associated with that house as well, I am still filled with a sense of nostalgia and wonder when I am brought back to it today.