Summertime Memories: The scent of a mother

I’m listening to the song “the Funeral”  and feel an overwhelming sense of déjà vu while sad, yet nondescript memories come flooding into my stream of consciousness.

To the outside the dead leaves, they’re on the lawn
Before they died, had trees to hang their hope

It’s raining softly and the thick green leaves are bouncing softly. The leaves are being whispered to by mother nature. There is a distinct green summer smell that fills me with nostalgia. The wet smell of leaves and grass. Summer. Summer time. You can actually smell the color green. You can taste the green. Its earthy, hearty and crunchy.

It’s invigorating and overwhelming in how it fills you up as you inhale the scent. Memories from summer past come flooding back. New York City summers have been all sorts of vibrant. Fire hydrants with kids running wild there under, men playing dominoes at the corner store and loud block parties.  That is summertime in New York.  In New York, there is also the smell of spoiled milk that permeates the streets. The heat and the humidity and the summer school lunches come together into a musty, musky, spoiled scent. The summer time food fairs fill blocks on end with foods from throughout the world bringing a sweet fry smell to the air.

The smell of green, humidity and fried food all remind me of my mother. Summer time, more so than any other season, reminds me of my mother. Summertime, was when I got to hang out with my mom. We went book shopping and walked with our red cart to the Laundromat. The rest of the year, I was at boarding school and Christmas was a bit of a depressing time at home.  Summertime was a time of freedom. We could just walk and not be so worried about expenses. There was always a show on the streets of New York. My mom just loved people watching. She would look out the summer window and take in the whole New York scene while I stood behind her taking in the scent of my mother.

She had a sweet smell to her that changed a bit with age. When we are children, the smell of a mother orients us towards safety. At the outset, upon coming out into the world, we seek that smell out. A recent study (Nishitani et al., 2009) found that newborns undergoing a painful procedure were soothed by the smell of breast milk from their mothers. Till this day, the smell of my mother still soothes me. At least the memory of that smell. My sense of smell goes into overdrive in the summer and my thoughts of my mother do as well. The smell of a mother never stops being part of your being.

This summer, I will soak in the sun, travel far and wide and breathe in the memories of the scent of my mother.