Signal smells and sounds
Do you ever associate a place with a smell, a sound or even a noise?
So I watched this documentary on a plane last year, all about wine, very hoity-toity and very fascinating. One thing that the sommelier being documented said stuck with me - smells should conjure an image or a place and that tells you the taste. And it got me to thinking, do all our senses work like that? Can we see a place we’d forgotten about just by smelling something from that moment in time when we were there?
Coffee - I love it. I like it first thing in the morning. My day doesn’t officially start until I smell the brew in my home espresso pot starting to burn and bubble. Where does this love and sense of longing for a smell come from?
6AM - 5 year old me asleep on my grandmothers old worn couch in her living room. It was my preferred place rather than the guest room. Curled up in my PJs under grandma’s homemade quilt and blankets. There’s a sound that I hear first - plup plup plup, slow and steady. Then a smell, like dried berries and cinnamon and wet leaves are all roasting over a tiny fire. It was my grandma’s percolator. A 1950s era wonder that I loved hearing first thing. It meant there was toast, bacon, maybe potatoes from her super-always-seasoned iron skillet. For years I have tried to replicate those potatoes to no success. But that strong coffee for her and grandpa I do remember. Pulling up to the table, breakfast is ready. The Plup-Plup percolator was my alarm clock.
8AM - 44 year old me listening to the forest wake up. It’s June of 2020 and I needed to be out here, in the green, in the dewy morning, out of a house where work, play, eating and sleeping had been nonstop for months at this point with very little distinction between those actions. Alone, in the forest, climbing out of my tent, arranging the small collection of kindling I’d assembled last night into a small pyramid and lighting it on fire. Slowly feeding it until red formed under the yellow flames and a crackle of burn started. Then the grate sliding over the flames and my campsite coffee pot goes onto the grate and over the flames. I listen - birds, they are always first, far off a rooster is crowing somewhere, crickets, cicadas are starting a slow buzz that will get deafening and reassuring that summer is indeed here…There it is - Plup, Plup. The first clear liquid that percolates into the top of the coffee pot lid, slowly turning brown. I smile, and wish I had those potatoes.
Current - I have a fantastic group of friends that all are based around wine. 3 couples who get together regularly, we say it’s to taste wine, and it is, but it’s honestly because we enjoy each other’s company, we get to try new wines, and now I’m realizing I also get to relive. Using my new personal traveling power, when I sniff into a glass of cabernet, I don’t rack my brain for berries, earth, pencil shavings (yes it’s a thing), or what have you. I see. I see inside my head. I close my eyes, inhale and watch. What memory unfolds. That’s the wine’s flavor. That’s its imprint on me. One glass might be a seaside vacation in canada from years ago - salt swept grass, sunshine and lillies. Another might be a forest hike after a rain storm. All these things connected in my head. It’s like a tiny sommelier travel agency at my disposal. Lovely.
How many places can I go to without the need of a plane? This is going to be fun. Cheers.