The other day, I was making spring rolls for our Christmas celebration with RJ's family. There was much discussion in the J household about when to shower, whether to open the windows, what would need to be aired out, etc. etc. etc. because although those suckers taste great, they smell up the entire house while they're cooking. Not in a BAD way, necessarily, just in a strong, Asian restaurant kind of way. The smell lingers for days sometimes. But they taste good, and they're totally worth it.
The smell of spring rolls cooking is one that RJ grew up with.
Me, not so much. Different kinds of smells are more familiar to me.
For a whole bunch of technical, medical, proven reasons that I won't go into here, smell and memory have been closely linked. True dat.
There are some smells that take me right back home. Not home now, but the home of my childhood when things were simple and good and easy. If only I could have known that then...
The smell of wood smoke is the first smell that takes me back. That, and homemade biscuits and bacon, and cigarettes and tobacco hanging in the barn waiting to be stripped and bleach and laundry fresh off the line. I can still smell the clover in the field and the new grass and the rotting leaves in the fall and the water in the creek near our house.
When I smell pigs in the summer, I think of home. When I smell fresh cut trees and gasoline powered chainsaws, it takes me back. Ditto cheap aftershave and a carful of kids on the way to church.
There are a million smells that trigger memories for me.
I wonder what my boys will think home smells like. When they are all grown up and out on their own, what smells will take them back? Probably baking rum cake, and Pledge floor cleaner, and pizza and popcorn on movie Sunday nights. Probably homemade macaroni and cheese and CK Be, RJ's favorite cologne. Probably linen scented candles, and Gain fabric softener, and chocolate chip cookies, just because. And spring rolls. Spring rolls will smell like home for them, too.
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