Wednesday 2 May 2012

The Scent of Memory

What does the smell of a freshly-opened packet of mint gum mean to you? For me, it’s being 14, opening a brand new notebook and starting to write the beginning (and usually only the beginning – I was notoriously bad at finishing stuff at that age) of my next story.

What about creosote? That’s summer holidays, pavements melting in the heat, the horizon shimmering hazily and the air filled with the drone of lawnmowers.

Imperial Leather soap? My grandmother’s downstairs bathroom, decorated in underwater shades of green, with plants on the windowsill and a shower that had a crinkly-textured plastic screen. 
 
Linseed oil? I’m a student again, mixing up glazes for oil paintings while the sun slants in the attic windows of my college studio, and beyond them, a view of the beach and the sea, beckoning to me.

And then there’s the certain sort of washing powder that reminds me of a friend I had at school; the smell of coffee, which transports me to mornings at my parents’ house; the scent of bruised summer grass, which reminds me of playing in the garden with my mum’s springer spaniel, Jennie, who was part of our family when I was very young.

I started thinking about the connection between smell and memory after reading this wonderful blog post by AbiBurlingham about the power of imagination, then having a conversation with her on Twitter with about how, for both of us, certain scents trigger strong memories.

Apparently, this occurs because of a link between the olfactory bulb and the amygdyla (the part of the brain which processes emotion) and hippocampus (the part of the brain which is, among other things, responsible for learning and memory). The memories certain smells like the ones listed above trigger for me are so strong, I’m literally transported back to the time and place I first smelled them – almost an olfactory hallucination (you can find a more scientific explanation of this phenomenon here).

I also have a memory for smells. When I was 12, my parents took me and my sister to Switzerland for 2 weeks where they were teaching a course. The village we stayed in was right up in the Alps, surrounded by mountains, and the air was so fresh you could taste it – clear and cold and crisp. When I look through the photos I took back then, I can smell that air again, and that smell takes me straight back to looking out of my hotel room window each morning at the little white church opposite, with cloud rising up from the valley behind it and the rising sun pink on the mountains that surrounded the village.

Are there certain smells which trigger strong memories for you? What are they, and where do they take you?

30 comments:

  1. I absolutely love this! I think scent is a really overlooked, underused sensory descriptor in books. What is amazing about smells is that when you talk about them, the way you have here, it conjures up such an amazing vividness to the rest of the image you're describing. As a reader you almost start to smell that smell yourself. It's brilliant!

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  2. Thank you, Zoe! Yes, I think it is too. It's not something I always consider when I'm first writing a scene, but when I go back and redraft I often end up adding it in.

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  3. Hi Em. When I read this title, I had a bit of a de-ja-vu moment - now I know why! Yes, scents trigger all sorts of memories for me. But the strongest one is the smell of new carpets, which I adore, and a really clear memory of walking round carpet shops with my Mum and Dad. There are gazillions more, and they are such an instant trigger to memories of people and places - a little storage cabinet all of its own! As I'm full of cold at the mo, I have no sense of smell atall - I'll be relying on my memories of them even more for the next few days I think! Lovely post Em and glad to have been a part of its inspiration! x

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    1. Thank you, Abi, glad you enjoyed it. I didn't list *all* the smells that trigger memories for me, or this would have been the longest post ever! Hope you feel better soon. x

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  4. Oh, neat post idea, Emma! Um, instant coffee--particularly Taster's Choice brand. Childhood memories galore (my parents drank the stuff like water!)

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  5. You're absolutely right, smell can recall some powerful memories. I'm the same; something can catch me by surprise and whisk me away to things I'd almost forgotten about, make me feel almost as if I'm really there. It's an amazing sensation. It's a shame there has to be a scientific explanation, though, don't you think? Maybe some things are best left to the dreamers . . .

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  6. Oh those smelly memories! Witch hazel - falling over in the school playground! Marijuana - one particular evening in 1969 (though I can't remember how the night ended!). And that ammonia-pee smell - one corner in Mysore where all the tuk tuk drivers relieved themselves (yuk!)

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    1. Wow, Jo, that's a real collection! I'll pass on the pee smell, though… :D

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  7. Lavender - my nan and grandad's garden when I was a kid. I still have to touch that plan whenever I pass it so I can smell it on my hands. In fact I taught my little girl to do the same thing the other day!

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    1. Oh, I love lavender too. My parents used to grow it at their old house - such a summer smell!

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  8. I have several, but one that stands out is pipe tobacco. When ever I smell it or think about it I remember my grandfather (my father's father). Another would be Lemon--that's a bad one. I associate the smell of lemon with the time I became violently ill over Lemon Meringue Pie. Ugh... I get nauseous thinking about it. LOL

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    1. Oh no, evil lemon! I have the opposite association - lemon reminds me of the lemon cleaner my mum used to use in our kitchen when we were on holiday. The smell of dettol, on the other hand, reminds me of the sickroom at school - I hate it!

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  9. Scent is so important...it's funny now when the kids mention a particular smell and they associate it with something, I wear a jasmine neroli scent, not often but here and there, and one of them caught the fragrance of jasmine the other day and said it was me!
    I have a morello cherry lipsalve which just drags me right back to playgroup and a three-year-old playing with Play Doh...and like you, spearmint gum takes my head back to teenage years!

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    1. Ooh, Play Doh - that had a really distinctive smell, didn't it? Kind of marzipan-y!

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  10. I love this post -- I have many memories attached to smells as well. A few very strong ones around my grandmother's house, that I loved, where she had a tin she kept her homemade black walnut cookies. I still have the tin and smell it from time to time and I'm immediately in her kitchen. Also in her house there was a closet where she kept her gloves and powder compact.... I have an old suitcase of hers that smells exactly like that closet and I always imagine myself standing there, watching her put her coat and gloves on for a walk! Love this post!! Thanks for the memories!

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    1. Thank you, Julia! That's so lovely that you have your grandmother's cookie tin, and that it still has that smell. What a wonderful keepsake!

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  11. Great post, Emma! :-D I am very smell sensitive (maybe not memory wise), but I don't eat eggs because the smell or ketchup. Its funny I tend to have a "book" memory - I can remember where I was, how old I was and what I was feeling/wearing/thinking when first reading HP& THE SORCERER'S STONE and the first ANIMORPHS book, etc. Funny how memory works like that. I have missed your blog posts and I'm glad to see them back in action :)

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    1. Ah, thank you, Rachel. It is funny, isn't it? I'm the same with books - and music - and my own writing too!

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  12. I love this post, Emma. The smell of my girls freshly washed hair takes me back to the time when they were tiny, and loved their bathtimes, with all the bubbles. Now 2 of them are teenagers, and all 3 take very long showers, but when they let me up close to kiss them goodnight, the memory kicks in. Where have all those years gone!

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    1. Oh, that's so lovely! Thank you for commenting, Louise, and I'm glad you enjoyed the post. :)

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    2. Beautifully put, Emma. My strongest olfactory trigger is the smell of Buddleia - I am immediately transported back to Cuckoo Vale and my first and only family home; catching butterflies in cupped hands (and sometimes getting bees instead!). In fact there is one place I now walk past with the dog (last thing at night) that I often get a strong burst of flower scent - a very powerful experience in the dark. It give an otherwise monochrome experience an dash of unexpected colour; every time it happens.

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    3. Thank you, Martin! I love buddleia too - it used to grow wild near to where I grew up, and the scent always reminds me of a certain walk I used to do.

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  13. Fresh sawdust, engine oil, coffee, dirt (the good kind, the rich, black, growing things kind)--that's Papa Tucholke. I'd know that combination of smells anywhere. Really cool post, Emma.

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  14. I hear you on the creosote thing! Also, the smell of rain on steamy hot asphalt. That's summer, too.

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  15. Hurrah for another creosote fan! And I love that rain-on-asphalt smell too - especially when there's a thunderstorm starting. *Definitely* summer!

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  16. The smell of instant noodles (specifically the Cup O' Noodles brand) always makes me think of forest holidays with my granddad and eating the noodles on a cold, misty earl morning. Ahhh nostalgia...

    What a fantastic idea for a post, Emma!

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    1. Thank you, Sangu! And what a wonderful memory. :)

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