Sunday, February 13, 2011

Scents and sensibilities

When I was busy composing my morning post over on my other blog, I started thinking about the time when I was a young girl in Puerto Rico. My father was stationed at Ramey Air Force Base when I was three, and I spent the next three years of my life playing and exploring in the tropical setting of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. I must have played with the flowers of this tree, known as the yellow flamboyant tree (Peltophorum pterocarpum). I spent some time on line looking for a picture of the tree that I vaguely remembered. But the reason for the title is that of another memory.

Years later I returned to Puerto Rico when my then-husband Derald was stationed at that same air base. I was nineteen, and my son Chris was born there. We also lived in the town of Aquadilla, since it was the closest town to the air base. I had a stroller with my infant son in it and I was walking somewhere, now lost in the mists of time. A flower from an overhead tree wafted down in front of me, gently falling just out of reach. I stopped in the benevolent sunlight, picked up the flower and smelled it.

Suddenly, I was transported back to a time a decade and a half earlier. The smell of that flower caused me to remember what it was like to be a little girl again, with images and emotions flooding through me. This tree only grows in tropical areas, and I had not smelled that particular scent in all that time. This morning, I swear I could smell that flower again as I brought up the memories of us playing with the flowers, making bouquet and garlands of them, I imagine.

I found some really interesting information about scents and why they are so powerful, on Discovery Health on line:
A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the "emotional brain," smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously. The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. Despite the tight wiring, however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren't for conditioned responses. When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment.
I really had no idea that the power of smell was so, well... powerful, but even today I can remember the emotions that I felt on that long-ago day when I picked up that flower. I also notice that several times I have looked at a picture posted by some blogging friend, and an emotion and a scent seem to waft through my mind. This happens often with roses, but the number of times I have stopped to smell the roses are too many to link to any particular memory.

Not at all like the yellow flamboyant tree, unique and very special in my memory, linked to a wonderful gentle time in my childhood and again another time as a young mother. It is a very special feeling to see a picture of that tree and be able to smell the flowers.
:-)

28 comments:

  1. I am always surprised how closely intertwined memory, emotion, and smell are. I wrote a post about memories and smell a long time ago. Here's the link if you ever want to read it.
    http://myweathervane.blogspot.com/2009/04/evening-in-paris_19.html

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  2. There is a poem called "Oregon Winter" that takes me back to my childhood, growing up in a little frame house heated by a wood stove in the Willamette Valley. In that poem there is a line about smell:
    "There will be plenty of time now, time that smells of fires,
    And drying leather, and catalogues, and apple cores."
    That, and the smell of August rain on dust, those are the smells of my childhood.

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  3. Some smells are connected to wonderful things from my childhood..freshly baked bread, lilacs, a wet dog and the muzzle of a horse..they all make me stop and remember days long ago.
    I think it is good to stop and just let feelings and emotions wash over us like waves..:)

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  4. Your writing has always held my interest but lately your writing has gone up a couple notches. I could almost smell the scent you describe here in your inimitable style.

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  5. That is so true...many times a scent can bring back such strong feelings. My grandma used to wear a certain perfume that is hard to find but when I smell it---it is like inhaling her. Very strong emotions!

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  6. oh yes smells are definitely powerful and can take you many places....

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  7. Really, I was almost smelling the lovely yellow flower!

    Brilliantly described, and a beautiful feeling to this too.

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  8. Smell and memory are so closely linked. I love this story.

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  9. Hi DJ, like you I've had some particular scents which reminds me of someone or something which happened from the past and I don't have any idea why it's like that. The scent of food which my Mom always cook for me, the scent of moth balls which my Dad used to keep his things safe from bugs, old tobacco, coffee and I always love to smell the scent over and over again.

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  10. Great post on smells and how they bring us back to certain experiences. I think all our senses do that. I find that certain types of light remind me of something way back in time.

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  11. I know exactly what you mean about the sense of smell. I've felt that throughout my life about many different scents. Nicely written, DJan.

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  12. Oh yeah. The scent of a woman, was a famous line somewhere in something. I don't know that I have smelled the scent of a woman, but then they say the nostrils and the ability to smell wavers around 50 and disappears by 65. I know I can't smell my own farts anymore and I used to love to smell them and wave the covers up and down which grossed my wife of 55 years clear out of bed. Those were the best remembered scents I can remember at the moment.

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  13. I had a scen experience just yesterday
    a man was wearing a cologne that immediately took me back to my dear Uncle Johnny, it was like being a time traveller

    lovely post
    thanks for sharing your memories and for validating that scent really can trigger them

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  14. Yes, I'm very influenced by smells too D-Jan. Depending on the smell, I travel back in time to when I first smelled the smell, just like you. The smell of hawthorn takes me back to my childhood and mimosa always reminds me of Knoxville and my associations here. So many smells, so many memories...

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  15. I'm laughing at Honest Abe's honesty! We mall walk at our big MOA. And so many of the stores have horrible strong smells that waft out and infect custumers. I'm sure they are meant to make you want to come in and buy. But I just want to run!

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  16. My sister has worn the same fragrance for 30 years. For all but the last 15 of those years she led a wild, crazy, aggravating and scary life. When I see here these days and get a whiff, the crazy days come back, even though she's living a completely different, healthy life now.

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  17. You're so right about smell and memories! Great post.

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  18. So beautiful...the flamboyant tree flower and your memories. And how lucky to have grown up in Puerto Rico. I have a book called the Fragrant Mind that I refer to for burning oils of different flowers. Lavender oils keep things calm and peaceful in the house. As I'm typing this I am smelling lovely hyacinth flowers on the table and feeling spring throughout my being. It's so amazing the gifts Mother Nature gives us to soothe our souls.
    Nice that you had the opportunity to be given the chance of remembrance of your youth. Thanks for sharing.

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  19. Interesting. I lost my sense of smell to a virus some years ago. Now I just remember things like the fresh scent of pine. I commend your strong and adventerous spirit even in the face of recent events. I a post on sky diving and Rae reminded me of you participation in the hobby. Good luke in all things. :)

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  20. I've seen your face on comments around so many of the blogs I visit and just had to stop by to meet you. Your blog is fabulous! I love it. The pikake (jasmine) and white ginger flower scents always evoke such beautiful childhood memories for me.

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  21. Perhaps the most fragrant outdoor bloom for me is the Korean spice which smells much like orange blossoms. They provide a real boost to the senses in spring.

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  22. It's amazing, isn't it? Unfortunately, not all those scent memories are quite as lovely. I can remember walking the dog a couple of years ago, and I told my husband it smelled like dead frogs. He wanted to know how I knew what dead frogs smelled like. I couldn't remember; I was just certain that's what it was. Bless my sister because she's the one who reminded me that we used to get dead frogs in the skimmer baskets of the pool. I found it odd that I could identify the smell but not associate it with a particular moment until I was reminded. Too many drinks maybe pickled my memory!

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  23. This is a remarkable phenomena - I have a cookie jar that I inherited from my grandmother who died when I was very young. Even though the jar has been washed countless times, it has a unique smell to it like nothing else. But what is more, when I open that jar and sniff that smell, I have vivid memories of my grandmother and her house.

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  24. I've notice that my smell-memory was so much stronger when I was younger (twenty's & thirty's). Especially when I would go back to CA to visit where I grew up.

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  25. Hey, congrats on the POTW award on The Smitten Image. Great post, didn't I already say that?

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  26. I think this is just fascinating...I know that there are smells that are very much tied to negative events and also positive things that happened in my life and never have understood why. A wonderful post...I could almost smell the flowers.

    Congratulations on POTW at Hilary's...very well deserved!

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  27. I came back to say congrats on POTW

    well deserved :)

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  28. With changes in the weather I have smelled where i like to go trout fishing, the ocean on a particular vacation and lots of childhood memories right in my yard.

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