The nose knows: Take an olfactory trip down memory lane | Entertainment/Life | theadvocate.com

2022-06-25 00:03:30 By : Ms. Evelyn Zeng

Swimming remains one of my favorite activities. Just the smell of a pool makes me smile. 

At the end of a long day at work, jumping in a pool and letting the cares of the world drift away with each and every flutter kick does my heart and mind good. Last week, as I got out of the pool, I walked over to my bits and bags and picked up my towel, warm from the afternoon sun.

This towel isn’t just any old beach towel. It’s the very one a friend gave me for high school graduation back in 1982. I still remember how proud I was of that towel that summer, and when I buried my face in the now thin version of its geometric rainbow designs, I could still smell my 18th summer, an almost-burnt-cotton-mixed-with-chlorine kind of scent.

That particular smell still makes me smile.

Our sense of smell is such an amazing thing. Scientists, including Eliassen J. Herz and Souza T. Beland, say our sense of smell is the sense most closely linked to memory and emotions. They say that more than any other sense, smell can trigger personally meaningful memories.

I have plenty of other smells closely related to long ago that can conjure up days and people gone by better than anything else. There was a particular oil my grandmother used sparingly on her sewing machine. Every now and then, I catch a whiff of it and am back beside my grandmother watching her sew.

Nutmeg always reminds me of my great-grandmother, who used the spice more than anyone else I’ve ever known. She put it in her beloved teacakes and in her apple pies. Anytime I smell it, tears well in my eyes at the memory of all of her love.

Another smell I remember well is the smell of the gymnasium at the school where I grew up. Even in my memory, I can smell that scent so clearly that I can almost hear shoes squeaking and basketballs bouncing that went along with the eau de stinky jerseys.

I asked my husband about smells connected to his childhood. He grew up in the desert of El Paso del Norte in West Texas. So much of our frames of reference on the world are different, but he had a list of specific smells at my asking.

Wet dirt was at the top of his list. He explained that because it didn’t rain often in the desert, when it did it was a big deal. He and his friends would go into his back yard of dirt and fill the yard with streets for their toy cars.

He also remembered the smell of text books in the text book room in school, the smell of newsprint when he was throwing his paper route; the smell of green chiles roasting; the smell of White Shoulders, the perfume Mrs. Downey, his second-grade teacher, wore; the smell of rolls cooking at school and the smell of his mother’s purse — a combination of old makeup and money.

I asked our 24-year-old daughter Greer what smells of her childhood she remembered.

Her answer was simple — the face cream her grandmother (my mom) puts on her face every night “when she puts underwear on her head.” Greer stressed the importance of including the detail that my mom’s solution to not getting the rather greasy Merle Norman face cream in her hair is to use a pair of undies to hold her hair out of her eyes and off her face. My mom has done so for as long as I can remember.

Piper, our 20-year-old daughter, also had answers, starting with “the smell of getting on a hot school bus – fake leather, sweat and yesterday’s lunch.” She added the scent of the perfume I’ve worn for years, the smell of the mall and the smell of chile ramen and curry being cooked in a microwave.

Try it for yourself — or with friends and family. Take an olfactory trip down memory lane. What smells trigger vivid memories for you?

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