Smell and Memory/Joy and Trouble

Last night our son was telling us about this book he is reading Alvin Ho:  Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look.  Alvin, our son explained, is trying to figure out how to do a lot of new things without being scared--and without talking.  He is, as he tells us in the book, as 'silent as a side of beef'. (great line!) Somewhere along the way we get to the part where Alvin takes his dad's ultra favorite childhood toy--a Johnny Astro figure--to school and things go horribly, horribly wrong.   At this point our son asked if I remember getting into trouble when I was little.  I swear, as soon as he asked, both he and his sister sat up straighter in their chairs, their eyes bright with hope, their little ears wanting all of the gory, painful details.  (Face it, your children love hearing stories about you getting into trouble--morbid curiosity at it's most innnocent.)

So laughter ensued when I told the story of when I was around 5 and I was playing Superman with a towel for a cape. I told how I ran into my parents room and up onto their huge bed--jumping and swooping, generally being the best Superman ever.  I remember feeling perfectly joyful, light and bright and the next moment knowing that I was in so much trouble that nausea roiled and knees knocked.  I had, in the midst of a perfect twirl of my cape, swept all of the beautiful bottles of perfume off of my mother's dresser. 

I know I got into trouble, who wouldn't?  But I don't remember the details of my punishment...my memories are of everything that came before. 

The sound of glass breaking and the smell of the different perfumes blending together in a closed room are perfectly preserved in my memory. I can't smell White Shoulders to this day without being transported back to that room.  To me White Shoulders is the color of the bedspread, the carpet, the drapes.  It is the feel of the room, of being in that room alone, the indescribable perfection of jumping on a big, bouncy bed and watching myself float and fly in the mirror, my towel/cape fluttering behind me like the tail of a kite.  It brings to mind a child feeling safe, surrounded by the sights and smells of her parents and yet also feeling the fear of a curious adventurer, being someplace you knew you weren't supposed to be, but being there, and wanting to be there, anyway.

Of course, I had lost the interest of my children by then.  They had no desire to hear about smell and memory, they just wanted to know what Grandma had done to me.  So, we went on talk about Daddy's exploits, Uncle Johnny's exploits, more of mine...needless to say, they were amused and satisfied by the end of dinner.

But I was stuck on the issue of smell and memory, and how smell is such a big part of my most vivid memories, both bad and good.  The heavy, sharp smell of pine trees and cut hay on hot, still summer days remind me of Nancy Drew, Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables.  The smoke from a wood fire of puzzles and Monopoly.  Wet rabbit fur (don't ask...so embarrasing) of my first date with someone who would turn out to by my first boyfriend.  I walked into a neighbor's garage the other day and was struck hard by the smell of my grandparents garage in Princeton, Illinois circa 1974-75....the place where they kept the olives....joy, joy and double-joy.

Diesel makes me think of a broken generator, the smell of feathers a chicken coop, rock salt reminds of haying time and my skin prickles.  We all have these experiences where one simple, or complex, aroma can bring to life a moment in time, a memory to cherish or shudder away.  Avery Gilbert in his book, What the Nose Knows, does a really wonderful job bringing this whole phenomenon to life in a fun way--the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) didn't call him the "Mark Twain of nasal passages for nothing". It is science as story, much like Guns, Germs and Steel and my all-time favorite, Cod:  Fish that Changed the World. (I also just like saying the title, it's fun.)

Two other artists/authors come to mind when I think of the smell/memory combination.  One is Memories that Smell like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz. His book of autobiographical drawings and writings about the AIDS epidemic is stunning and difficult.  I read it one day in a coffee shop so oddly enough I associate it with the innocent cinnamon of coffe cake--the one I left untouched as I was so not in the mood for it after this book.

The second one is really a book about design, but also about aroma  and a person's experience of a city, Kyoto, and they combine beautifully in KyotEau:  Bottled Memories by Della Chuang.  There is a small sample of the actual perfume Kyoto KyotEau in the back, which makes the story complete for the reader.

For me, the smell of KyotEau will always remind me of sitting in my office reading something so wonderful, daydreaming about being someone else, overlaid by the angst of getting 'caught' because I should have doing something else. 

Smell and memory, joy and trouble...I'm right back where I started.  Lovely.