Sense memory-summer

My neighbor Helen (who is in her seventies and just the neatest person) and I got to talking about memories on the way home from the grocery store a few months ago. She thought it was remarkable that a certain smell can conjure up another place and time. I've been thinking about our conversation alot lately, and realize that all of our senses can hold memories. I wanted to get some of these logged. This first post will cover memories about summer, which is quickly coming to a close this year.

The smell of chlorine in swimming pools makes me think of summer evenings at the Y with my Mom and brother, where lots of times we had the giant pool almost to ourselves. Years later when I was going through much turmoil in my first marriage I would walk my dog Stanley past the apartment swimming pool and be calmed by that smell. When Gabriel plays in the sprinkler I am taken back to several different backyards where we would take what my Mom called "shower baths" in the sprinkler.

I think food smell memories are the strongest. One food smell memory takes me to our summer trips to visit relatives near Corpus. My Aunt Sarah was a wonderful cook, but something about her green beans were magical. They were picked fresh from the garden and simmered with onion and bacon, and you could even smell them cooking outside where we played on the tire swing. Mouth-watering! And yet another one takes me to Fredericksburg where we used to stay with my Aunt Lou and Uncle Robert. When we woke up in the morning, the smell of breakfast cooking always lured us to the kitchen. But it was the smell of my Aunt Lou's homemade brown bread toasting that I will always remember. I think those trips turned me into a toast junkie. When I need to be comforted after a bad day I can always count on the smell of bread toasting to calm me.

And finally, this isn't a smell but a feel. Whenever I walk on thick St. Augustine grass, I am transported to my grandparents' backyard where my brother and I would spend countless hours playing croquet, having handstand contests or exploring my grandfather's wood shop. I can feel the cool grass beneath my bare feet, taste the pink lemonade and smell my grandmother's freshly washed linen hanging on the clothesline. Summer, summer, summer.