The lovely Mrs. Newton and I went shopping at the dollar store last week (a weekly occurrence for penny-pinchers like me). As we walked down the aisle with paper towels, laundry detergent, household cleaners, etc. I picked up a thing of Glade solid air freshener and put it in the shopping cart. “What’s that for?” My wife asked. Before I could respond, she started making educated guesses. “Does someplace smell? Do you want to put it under the sink?” You see, my wife is used to questioning my dollar purchases. When I go into a Dollar Tree, its as if I just went into a buffet after not eating for a few days. I look at all the cool cheap stuff around and… well, a short shopping trip for paper towels ends up costing me more than 15 dollars.
Back to the air freshener. “It’s for the RV,” I said. “The old one ran out.” Ahhh… things now made sense for my lady. I then shared a tidbit of personal information that I’m not sure Shannon knew. “The scent is Cashmere Woods. It’s one of my absolute favorite scents. I love this smell.”
“Why’s that?” She asked. “It reminds me of fall,” I replied. “When I breathe it in deeply I’m transported in my mind to the majesty of the season and hayrides and apple pies and leaves changing color and all that. It’s always done that to me.”
Over the course of our marriage, one thing Mrs. Newton has been reminded of repeatedly is how powerful scents and aromas are to triggering my memories. Every time I smell something that reminds me of someone or someplace, I let her know about it. It’s one way I’m trying to share my past and its experiences with her. Smell is powerful.
This particular scent, “Cashmere Woods” is a musty vanilla fragrance that first caught my attention furing the eventful summer of 2013. That summer I spent four months as a campground host at a National Forest campground in mountainous New Mexico. I purchased a cheap $600 pop-up camper that no longer popped (muscle power only) and an old Ford Ranger truck and took my final few dollars with me to New Mexico to find relief from my inner ear disorder at high altitude and with drier air. After two months of hosting people from all walks of life, my pop-up smelled… well, I was a single guy living in a small canvas camper, so you get an idea! With a stipend payment from the government I went to the local Walmart and bought a scented candle. Glade’s Cashmere Woods. Despite being far from hayfields, red barns, scarecrows and pumpkins, the scent took my memories and emotions and carried them away with every wave of goodness.
When I smell that fragrance now, I’m reminded of my pop-up camper and that whole campground hosting experience. The same applies to the “Comfort and Joy” tea my little sister gave me for Christmas the year before. If I want to be transported back to my camper days, I just breathe in the aroma of the tea and drink in the memory.
For Shannon, one of her biggest memory triggers is taste. When she is distressed or sad, she will eat something familiar, something from her past, and the taste will transport her memory to a time and place far from her present circumstance.
It’s hard to overestimate the power of memories. Not only do they help us get through hard times (the taste of a good bowl of gumbo does wonders for my spirit), but they can lift up our grieving souls to provide a small measure of laughter or, possibly, even some sense of happiness. A pastor friend of mine, as part of his ministry of grief, used to gather a grieving family in a room to share memories of their loved one. While some were serious, some were outright hilarious. The whole family would erupt in laughter (chuckles count, too) as the memory. While such sharing could never bring back the one they lose, it was one way to emotionally help the family through the process of loss.
Memories are interesting things, aren’t they? What triggers your memories? Is it smell? Touch? Sight? Sound?
J.C. Newton 