What Smell Brings Back Great Memories?
This may sound a bit bizarre, but think about it: a smell that transports you back to another time and place in a fraction of an instant, one that brings a smile to your face and possibly a tear to your eye.
What kind of fragrance could this be for you? Is it the aroma of Grammy's chocolate chip cookies--you know the ones with the pecans you spit out? The smell of root beer floats taking you all the way back to a middle school party playing spin the bottle and the bottle landing on your crush? Or the scent of Autumn leaves being gathered into a pile after a day filled with laughter as you discussed the best scary movies and why it's (and will always be) Scream?
Where did it take you?
Whatever came to mind, this smell that has the power to bring you to your happy place, will always be a personalized present. It's a time capsule, a message in a bottle waiting just so that anytime you come across this particular scent you transcend time and space to be somewhere else. Somewhere beautiful. Fun. Maybe even exotic.
Using our noses can be a peculiar thing, especially when it brings back memories we weren't aware would be so imprinting on our lives.
The soft scent that lifts off the pages when I open a book takes me back to the day I fell in love with reading. Being cozy under my covers launching into a Nancy Drew novel will forever be an escape I'd return to any chance I get. I wasn't aware at the time of the impact such a seemingly insignificant moment would have on me, and that it would later turn out to be the beginning of a long journey of adoration and joy. I'm grateful this is where I go when I begin a new venture into a different world with each newfound book I pick up. All thanks to that olfactory sense.
Smell is a gift. It rewards us. It patiently holds and cares for a memory that is otherwise locked in our minds and willingly and passionately shares with us, sometime when we least expect it.
Let your nose lead you to relaxation.
So treat yourself. Light up that cinnamon doughnut scented candle, take a warm bubble bath and return to a moment rich in the greatness of those happiest of memories.
Comment and let me know what's your "happy reminder smell"!
(Photos by, respectively: Živa Trajbarič, Lucas George Wendt, Maddi Bazzocco)
xoxo
Tessa