Scents

A friend and I were conversing on the topic of scents and how it can take you places or bring back memories. The first thing to go through my mind was this scene in Simon Birch, beautifully narrated by Jim Carrey.

When someone you love dies, you don’t lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time, like how the mail stops coming. What I remember most to this day was my mother’s scent and how I hated it when it began to disappear. First from her closets, then from her dresses she had sewn herself and then finally from her bedsheets and pillow cases. Simon and I never talked much about that day on the baseball field. It was too painful for both of us. For as much as I loved my mother, I knew that Simon loved her just as much. She was the only real mother he ever had.

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2 Responses to Scents

  1. Suzi says:

    Dunno if this is true, but I read once that although you can tie a scent back to one you've smelled before (that's why you know bacon is bacon, I guess) you don't have a 'memory' in the sense that you do with things you've seen. If you've seen a piece of bacon, you can visualize it. You can't really pull the scent on command, though. Actually, as I write this, I can practically smell bacon, so who knows.

  2. Sara De La Rosa says:

    I remember when my grandma’s bathrobe hanging on the hook behind the bathroom door stopped smelling like her.

    And I remember when they finally put it away. And then when they gave away all her clothes.

    Sometimes I think I can remember how she smelled, but I don’t know if it’s real.

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