Extremely Specific Scent-Memories
This morning I woke up after leaving the window by my bed open all night. The breeze was drifting in and through my apartment carrying the smell of a light sprinkle of rain. It was a tiny bit chilly, but not uncomfortable enough to bother closing the window. I actually don't think I could bring myself to close the window even if it was uncomfortably chilly, because the emotional and sensory experience of being next to the open window was activating my favourite scent memory.
This happens at least once a year, usually during warm spring and cool summer, and I really try to revel in it as much as I possibly can while it lasts. I don't have many scent memories because my actual sense of smell has always been pretty weak, but this one's unique and special to me partly because it also requires touch and sound senses to activate, and partly because it's one of the only scent-memories I have that bring me back to extremely specific moments. It's really potent but can also disappear suddenly if the conditions change. Somehow, it's managed to stick around since this morning so I'm gonna revel in it a bit and try to write out the whole experience before the sun sets or the rain comes to wash it all away.
The temperature is 16-20ºC, the wind in the ballpark of 15 km/h, it's a bit cool with the humidity around 70%, and the air clings to your arms and your hands, making you feel a little bit sweaty even though you're cold. Flowers are starting to bloom, leaves are unfurling from their buds, and you can smell life in the air beginning to re-emerge after a cold dead winter. It's cloudy, but the sun keeps peeking out preventing the sky from being entirely grey. There are a handful of songbirds singing, but not as many as there are in the warmer months.
This experience sends me to two incredibly specific memories, both from the same seasons when I was a kid. The first memory isn't as potent as the second, but the two are pretty entangled.
It's May 2006, I'm 8 years old, and I'd just gotten the May edition of the LEGO magazine... one with a Bionicle comic in it. Both Bionicle and comics were huge parts of my childhood and the combination of the two was some of my favourite shit. This issue was issue #2 of Ignition, and lemme show you the last 2 pages of the comic:
This was the SICKEST shit I had ever seen. I was floored. LEGO hadn't released any info about the summer wave of Bionicle sets yet, so this was my first introduction to the Toa Inika. "Toa" are the hero characters of Bionicle, but they were never portrayed as dark and shadowy... and definitely never had what looked like laser swords.
I poured over these two pages more intensely than I had any art before. Bionicle had recently brought on a new artist (Stuart Sayger) to draw the comics, and his work was so radically different than what we'd gotten for the previous 5 years. It was loose, sketchy, incredibly dynamic, and just oozed punk expression. I just sat there on our couch with the cool breeze wafting in through the open window and mused and theorized about what the deal was with these new Toa. I had never been so invested and intrigued.
The second memory takes place a month or two later, right here outside of the library in the town I grew up in. I'm sitting on the grass between the tree and the path, counting up my quarters, loonies, and toonies in anticipation for my mom to pick me up and drive into the city where They Have The New Bionicles. I had been saving my birthday money and $1.25 weekly allowance for months and I was going to spend it on the coolest Toa Inika: Matoro.
Fight me on this I was right back then and I'll never back down. RIP king.
The sun was shining, the songbirds were singing, and the wind had that same pre-rain smell to it. It was a bit warmer then than it is today, but the smell in the air and the feeling of the breeze on my skin is just the same. Waiting for my mom to show up felt like lasted an eternity, and the hype I felt then has really stuck with me through this really specific scent memory.
Anyways! I've come to the end of writing this as the sun has set and the breeze from my window is smelling like the rain is imminent. I feel like I've reveled in the feeling and the nostalgia as much as I could, and I'm glad I did! I don't often get the chance with how rare scent memories are for me. Most of my strong ones are Bionicle related, but nearly all the rest are associated with more vague periods of time and wider ranges of emotions.
Like, I've developed an unfortunate love for the smell of cigarettes because my first partner's grandma's constant chain smoking seeped into all of their clothes. I'd smell it every time I saw them, visited them, held them... and it didn't take long to associate the smell with entirely positive feelings. Now, when I walk by people smoking similar brands as their grandma did, I'm filled with feelings of warmth, safety, enamour, and admiration for everything a little fucked up around me. Honestly it's been a good thing that I've got the bonus threat of my lung collapsing again to keep me from getting into smoking lmao.
Indulge your good scent memories when you can!! I really love that they're extra potent as they're wired a bit more directly into your brain's emotional center! I love that they let me engage with my sense of smell more actively than I normally can. Bummer they mostly form more easily when you're a child, but thank goodness for being an adult with more agency over the smells you smell and experiences you experience; you can always make more!
2025 cat counter as of posting: 120