My Madelines, and an almost journey home

Marcel Proust is probably most famous for his description of how the taste of sweet roll -- a madeline == and some tea brought back strong memories. Makes sense, too, because science suggests that smell is one of our most basic senses and makes strong mental impressions.

It's amazing how much and how easily the adult me takes smells for granted; kind of like, I suppose, the way fish experience water, they're just there. Yet sometimes some smells will trigger memories and let me taste some experiences again, the more impressive because I don't recall the smells at the time. Yesterday I stepped out of the gym and walked past a patch of sweet clover. I remembered a time, nearly two decades back now, when my good friend and I were regular weekend bicyclists; I had the vivid image of a time we stopped for a break on a country road, on a beautiful summer afternoon. I can feel the sun, see the white cloud whisking across a crystal blue sky, feel the pleasant tiredness and the warmth of our friendship.

Most triggering smells take me much further back. I went for a walk the other evening and caught a whiff of burning leaves. I can't imagine where it came from, unless they were doing a controlled burn in the nearby nature preserve; no one burns leaves any more. But my mind and memory didn't go there; I'm of an age and from a place where one signal of autumn was the way that people piled up leaves at the end of their driveway or maybe in a spot in the backyard, and burned them away. For some reason I recall a man standing at the edge of a graveled alley, rake in hand, keeping an eye on the leaves; I can see the smoke rolling away, and the gentle flames eating at the leaves, the occasional bit of blackened ash floating up and into the sky. I seem to have been on a bicycle heading somewhere else, with no idea that the image was burning into my memory. But it did.

The most powerful and most recent olfactory memory has to do with a small patch of tomatoes I planted out back. It's been a wet and cool summer, and the plants didn't seem to have much enthusiasm about growing. But then we had a hot dry spell, and the tomato stems grew tall and leafy. I was admiring them and reached down to lift a branch up and over the wire of the tomato cage. When I brought my hand to my face I could smell the distinctive odor of the plant. And I was once again transported back, to that childhood that now seems so very far away. Tomato plants were common, nearly every house seemed to have a few in their backyards. That's where I went, too, back to long summer evenings when my friends and I roamed the few blocks of our neighborhood, often cutting through back yards and past or through gardens; no one minded except for one crabby old lady who kept a stern eye on her yard, and also kept any balls that ended up there. And I know that more than once we pelted each other with rotten tomatoes. Anyway, it seems now that we often ended up around tomato plants, or maybe it's just that the smell was so distinctive. Whatever it is, or was, the smell of tomato plants takes me far far back and I'm momentarily home again.

Then there's the smell of pumpkin "guts", the insides scooped out when making jack-o-lanterns. Not that many years ago I made them with my twins, but even then my inner self went often went far, far back. I find myself with my best friend, in his kitchen, carving our own pumpkins; and I picture those halcyon Halloweens, feel the crisp evening air as the child me and my friends made our trick-or -treat rounds on the darkened streets of our small midwestern city.

I recall some other smells without experiencing them. When I was a kid everyone's house had its distinctive slight smell, no doubt a conglomeration of the soaps and cleaning solutions and shampoos and so on, but whatever it was, I'm convinced that in those days if I'd been dropped blindfolded into a friend's house I would have immediately known. I don't notice those things any more, which I suppose is another reason why we can't really go home again. And it makes me sad to know those days are every day sinking further and further into my own isolated memories.

Right now, if I try, I can pick up faint smells on the breeze that wafts through my screened porch. A hint of fresh-mown grass, some very faint flowery smells from the daisies and from whatever flowers those are that came with the house and come back every year. Someone somewhere must have been grilling and gotten a bit carried away with the starter fluid. Soon the lilies will be in bloom, in all their funereal glory and I'll vaguely recall some folks who have passed away.

But I'm not sure any of tonight's smells will burn themselves into my memory, but then. . . . I remind myself that I never knew any of the other smells were deliberately preserved; who knows what, if any, I will recall in some future day when I catch a whiff of a forgotten smell.

Even this now is already becoming then.