Scent and Memory Collection

[avad]

childhood memories

what is a favorite comforting smell for you? something that soothes you whenever you smell it? perhaps all the way from childhood or not.

for example, the steam of cooked white rice really soothes me. whether it's my own or just opening the box from the chinese food place and the steam wafts out. I breathe it in intentionally....reminds me of home I guess.


comforting scents(collected from friends):

Hiroyuki Hamada: I cooked some rice this morning and it was exactly the comforting smell. It was really cute that our 3 year old pointed out how nice it was.

Erin Logan DeRosa: garlic sauteeing in olive oil, fresh basil, and lavender.

Peter D Kolb: my father smoking a pipe

Scott Powell: Eucalyptus. When I lived in NY I dabbed it on some cloth decorations I hung at the entranceway. Whenever I came home I'd get a little whiff ... so nice. oooh ooh, Starbucks' caramel apple spice :D

Jenny Beckman: the smell of tea and toast like mama makes!!!

Millie Rivera: cinnamon sprinkled on top of morning hot cereal.

David Gonzalez: Apple cinnamon, burning firewood, benil, barbasol shaving cream, baby powder, charcoal, the beach, garlic.

Marcia Karen Mednick: the smell of my hubby's shave cream (Neutrogena) or butter melting on just-toasted english muffin.

David DeRosa: A fresh rain in the desert. Leaves in the autumn. Roasting nuts on a NYC street during the holidays. I can't stop. Thank you for making me smile Darlene. Xoxo

Karen Buchner: old roses on a handkerchief, lilacs in my backyard, the smell of hot pavement just after it rains.

Hannah Fame Suhr: in the summer, when i bring my pillow and a blanket outside to lie on the ground with a book, the smell of my bed and the earth/grass together. amazing.

Gregory Bullock: The smell of printers ink as the big Goss press starts to warm up.

Erin Logan DeRosa: sheets fresh from the clothesline, the smell of a freshly baked newborn baby.

Darlene Charneco: greg I was thinking of you when looking at some pics of big printer facilities. Erin, we might want to reword that.;)xoxo

Erin Logan DeRosa: you know what i mean!!!! A newborn....nothing like that smell....heavenly.

Theresa Denise Williamson: Real old-fashioned roses, not the modern mass-produced scent-free ones... (my grandfather was a rose farmer)

Melody Winnig: fresh cut grass and hay, lilacs, jasmine and lily of the valley, pavement after a rain, puppy feet, sage in the desert, the smell of the ocean on my body, strong Cuban coffee, cherry pipe tobacco... i could go on and on Darlene. what a great thread. we could do it for all the senses

Andrea Cote: LAVENDAR! oil in the bath, massaging lotion on Nathaniel's little fingers and toes, tea before bed, sniffing my miraculously surviving houseplant and beautiful purpley gardens in summer... anywhere and everywhere!

please add yours!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ha! This brings up an interesting one -- the smell of the air-conditioner when you first turn it on. When I was three or four I would play in front of our wall unit while my bio father played the guitar or painted. Oh, and...the smell of fresh rain on rocks (gravel)... Serene Celia

[avad.livejournal.com]

These are great- thank you Serene.!...brings me in to the scene...as you describe itI hear that pretty load sound ...of the air conditioner when the wall unit is switched on. The sound for me triggers mostly memories of hotels....but also from childhood as the wall unit in my grandmother's bedroom in the Bronx where I would often nap mid-day while hearing the muffled voices of the family talking down the hall in the kitchen area...I remember that half awake feeling and can see/remember the light looking out the back window at other apartment buildings...and I can look around the room (memorypalace) at so many objects and memories...
Mmmm and yes that smell of rain on gravel!!!

[avad.livejournal.com]

interestingly your smell memory of the air conditioner became a Sound memory for me...as in that case it came up stronger for me as that click and loud hum