I've been led to understand that scent is the strongest memory trigger. Smells can resurrect moments for me that I scarcely knew even existed. Conversely, I have chased after and clung to aromas that renewed feeling and memory for times and people that were fugitive. What strong emotion can be held in the weft of a lover's shirt, pressing them closer to you, until their perfume finally fades away.
Has anyone ever tried to create a recording device for the facsimile of scent? We have archived sound and sight, but beyond the labors of the perfumier, which in my experience is something quite different, we have no record to trigger our olfactory sense and the mental and emotional experience that follows.
2 comments:
I have a really spectacular memory, but for some reason my file on smells is really pretty small...the smell of my first car is at the front..and the smell of Wisteria at an old campsite...
"Oh, the Union Central is pullin' out and the orchids are in bloom,
I've only got me one good shirt left and it smells of stale perfume.
In fourteen months I've only smiled once and I didn't do it consciously,
Somebody's got to find your trail,
I guess it must be up to me."
I know exactly what you mean. I have the indelible scent of the dirt from my grandparents' home where I played in it as a kid. Plus a few precious others.
Post a Comment