Realizing that some people don't have access to smells is real. I apologize upfront. If you have retained that sense of smell and have a minute, I'll move forward.
There is something magical about smelling good or bad odors. Amazing are the memories that these smells can pull from deep inside your head and make you think again of things that were when you were a kid.
Driving through certain parts of town can bring the day to reality. If there are restaurants you can pick out the fact that they are cooking, maybe not what, but you can find that good feeling sets it apart from the other things and can actually make your mouth water.
If you walk into the vets office, you'll find that heavy smell of dogs and cats that have left their mark on the property, all encumbered with their hair, their food, the truly almost overwhelming smells that can leave you queasy or just looking around for the one who must be the source.
There are hundreds of smells. You can have one fill your head with memories in an instant. Walking through grandparents front door in the 60's and 70's, with the air just moving, beans on the stove, the dirt from onions that are waiting by the sink, the fresh smell of vegetables that are screaming their presence, the gas stove giving you that flash of safety of those blue flames shooting up and the heat tinging those metal pans filled with cornbread, whose smell can comfort the soul.
Toothpaste can smell pretty. Baby powder can make the soul feel clear, awake and comfortable. Sheets just pulled from the dryer, the wet jacket you may have hung up to get it out of the rain, that awful smell of tennis shoes that have just been paraded through the leaving of pets, and once or twice in life maybe that odor of a skunk that may have been too close, that leaves its mark for days, or on the curious dog that took a blow to the face, that must live with it for weeks.
I could go on. A babys breath, a babys diaper, mothers perfume, leather too close to the fire, marshmallow burnt black, the inside of a book that has not been opened for years, the Bible grandmother carried that has flowers pressed in pieces of wax paper between the pages, your dads tools with grease and blackness of those old auto parts that remain fifty years later, the museum that may have a hundred and fifty year old pieces, that have the smells of time gone by.
The list goes on. And on. And on.
Ralph Peck
Photo by Ralph Peck
East of Foyil Oklahoma
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