Memory Makers

They call them "triggers" online now-a-days, I think - since so often the memories end up being toward the bad, or negative. I know at least for me there's certainly plenty of memories as triggers.

I've a tendency to notice most anything; I'm meticulous like that. It can eat at me too. In a really bad way. I'll notice all the wrong; the mistakes. I'll also notice coincidences that remind me of random people I know, or once knew.

Say, for instance, license plates. Initials get to me. I see them a lot. It used to be "cute", now it's just become annoying to me that I do it. I just see the initials of people I know, which, in turn leaves me thinking of them. It shouldn't be the most concerning thing, though it's not something I do fondly.

Oftentimes their initials cause me to recall enough about something, whatever, it might be, it's not a good thing, whatever it is. They're not people who've remained in my life, so there's the dismissiveness of the relationship too.

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At the same time there are things which bring out so much good. It oozes. I believe this may be why candle manufacturers have such success. Vanilla, chocolate, fresh linens, caramel, & so many others...

These are trigger scents, though they are also the scents where memories have been made. And they don't necessarily need to be scents either, that is, to be root in us, to establish those engrained memories.

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It may've been that Mom's deodorant happened to be a powder fresh scent. Then again, smelling baby powder does win me over more so than does the smell of gasoline, bleach, body odor (stinky feet anyone?), passing gas, certain cooked seafood, green peppers, & this or this for sure. Ugh!. & Yuck!

Orville & his competitors know this winning scent, even add a bit of melted butter to the scent mix. Whether treating the wood floor, the tile floor, the bathroom, or the main course of the next meal, this ingredient's a crowd pleaser.

Ultimately, even though I hardly run dry on the more miserable memories of Mom, whenever someone might spray something that's a "powder fresh" scent, I warm up on the inside as if chocolate chip cookies would be baking on the oven rack. That is, even though there's nothing "all natural" about these manufactured products encasing a fresh scent of powder, or any other scent for that matter.

With this scent I feel Mom's warmth; her happy smile for that moment in time with me. When she'd have just finished blow drying her hair for the day & running her hairbrush through her short mane while sitting on the edge of her bed where one of the mirrors attached to her dresser appeared before her.

Maybe it was the residual warmth of the hairdryer encompassing our moment as if a soft fleece clung through the air immediately around us, like a furnace heater adding an additional layer of warming temperature to the preset warming temperature of the house's thermostat.

They say these scents also assist in learning, which makes sense (no pun intended! 😂😃😲) since the learner would be remembering things when learning the same as anyone would remember a personal positive or negative memory.

There's a huggable, loveable, squishy quality to this smell. I'm grateful & thankful to have scents in this world to help create these, very important, enriching memories.



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