Smells Like Summer Spirit

Did you know that the sense that triggers memory best is the sense of smell? I wasn't sure that I really bought into that theory, until I had morning sickness. To this day, I cannot bottled Febreze without my stomach turning, even though it's been over a decade since its lovely aroma sent me rushing to my porcelain bff with baby #1. Now I'm a believer.

So when I was thinking about this week's topic, "favourite summer memories", it wasn't surprising to me when all my favourite memories involve smells.

Every season of my life has brought different smells. Some are good. Some are  less good. But all have been part of the journey. 

My childhood summers smelled like cut grass, sunscreen, chlorine, smoke from the bug zapper. They smelled like ebelskivers cooking in the cast iron pan, with a little bit of burned jam that leaked from the side. Bonfires and fireworks on the fourth of July. Tomatoes being canned. Grandma McKenna's bedsheets. Mint tea and flower gardens. It smelled like the gasoline from the garage where Grandpa's tractor was kept. It smelled like Chessmen cookies at bedtime.

The summers of my youth smelled like the barn. Saddle soap and leather. Fly spray and molasses coated grain. They smelled like the first few minutes after a good rain after we've waited under the overhang to take the horses out for a nice long ride. They smelled like porta-a-johns where I'd cope with pre-horse show jitters and sweat from underneath my helmet. They smelled like salt water and sand and the only kind of fish I can handle (the kind that I am not expected to eat). They smelled like books; sweet-smelling ink, old paper and binding. Those summers smelled like hot dogs and white cheddar and pink applesauce at Grandma's house and BBQ chicken on the grill on the front porch.

My teenage summers still smelled like the barn but they also smelled like movie theatres and Smith Mountain Lake and the stale cigarette smoke from my 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass. They smelled like the wood flooring at my first job and my favourite Chinese buffet. They smelled like my first boyfriend's cologne and sun ripened raspberry body splash. They smelled like Frank's Pizza. And sunshine and line-dried bed sheets (back in the day when I actually got to be in bed long enough to see sunshine or smell sheets). They smelled like the hospital and the chemotherapy room and saline from mom's IV. They smelled like my hands after holding hers.

Summer still smells amazing as an adult. It smells like freshly bathed babies and sunscreen. Like fresh strawberry shortcake. Like the paper bags at the Pole Green Produce Market and dirt from the softball field. It smells like smoke from the grill on my husband's shirt and watermelon slices. It smells like home baked bread and honey and the outside of Bruster's Ice Cream. It smells like open windows during thunderstorms and sweaty children. It smells like bug spray and peanut butter and the vapor from number six's nebulizer treatments. It smells like cobbler and eczema cream and s'mores and exhaustion (yes, exhaustion does, in fact, have a smell).

And speaking of exhaustion, and how it smells...it smells like this woman. Twelve hour car trips with six children is like the essential oil of exhaustion. It's concentrated and pressed and stuck in a tiny little bottle and when you open it, boy is it going to get ya.

So thank you for enduring my nostalgic trip down memory smell lane. I am going to go walk around in circles forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing.