Today’s #NaBloPoMo prompt: “Wordsworth called memory the ‘inward eye.’ Are your memories more sight-based, or do they concern sound, taste, touch, or smell?”
Some of my memories are sight-based, but the majority of my memories are comprised of sound, taste, touch, and/or smell.
One very vivid memory that concerns smell was from when I was pregnant with my first born. I had gone to my husband’s workplace for lunch. At that point in my pregnancy, I was experiencing a heightened sense smell (a symptom that 3 pregnancies and 10 years later has not yet gone away!). We had been at the cafeteria for lunch. After we got our lunches and sat down, I smelled grapefruit. I mentioned it to my husband, who thought I was more than a little confused, since the cafeteria didn’t serve grapefruit and no one around us had grapefruit in their packed lunch.
We finished our lunches and made our way back across the other side of the cafeteria to exit. As we got closer to the other side, the smell of grapefruit got stronger. We finally walked past someone, clear across the other side of the cafeteria, who had grapefruit juice in his cup. I can remember the smell as if it happened yesterday.
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I find that smell memories seem to be most connected with my childhood. I especially love how brushing against my mint plants takes me straight back to my grandmother’s wild mint patch, aside the rock patio where my twin brother and I played so many afternoons.
Wow! That was cool to read. For me, my smell memories revolve around my mother’s kitchen. The foods she would cook and how the house always smelled so delicious each evening. Now, I go to visit my mom in a different “house”, but the smells of her cooking turn this place into “home” for me.