~Colleen O’Brien
It’s said that the most potent memory jogger is scent. The whiff of cut grass was one of my favorites — used to make me feel like a kid long after I quit being one. A waft of Old Spice was my husband, and a whiff of baby powder my babies (now pushing 60).
I can no longer capture much of a scent of anything. As my years have piled up, my sniffer has lost all interest in Memory Lane. I miss a lot of smells now, only knowing this when someone says, “Oh, what a lovely smell!”
Or “Whew! Can you smell that hog confinement?” There are advantages.
I have learned that my sense of hearing rewards me with the sounds of life; it is a good substitute, having lost important things like the scent of roses, of chlorine at the pool, of pot roast. Just this morning I heard the drone of a prop plane overhead and stopped in my tracks to follow it across the sky, just like I did as a kid in my backyard on S. Oak. Was it my dad’s friend Doug? Was he on his way to someplace I’d like to go? Anyplace…I was interested in anyplace. There’s such a nostalgic tug when I hear it now that I know I’m really getting old.
It’s right up there with the sound of a push mower. Beats those giant ride-along John Deeres any day because it’s talking to me in the language of summer and I never have to close the window against its gentle clickety-clack rhythm.
Music, of course, takes me places often. “How Much Is that Doggy in the Window” and I’m six, singing along with my sisters to Mom’s piano playing as we perform for our grandparents. Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and I’m in the kitchen of my first apartment with my new husband who is waiting for me to feed him, even though it’s the only thing I know how to make — beanie weenies. He asks me if I might have any other recipes in my repertoire. I respond that I thought he liked it. It is our first tinge of not being on the same page.
The sound of sawing and hammering fills me with a sense of prosperity. It took me a long time to figure this one out, but I think I hit on it, at about eight years old. My sister and I are the Kool-Aid entrepreneurs of the south end of town . We’re raking in the coins as the carpenters file past for a tall cold one. They actually flip nickels into our dish — Kool-Aid from the O’Brien sisters costs only two cents a glass. They don’t want change. Our pockets sag with loot. I really love the sound of hammer and saw.
The familiar music on National Public Radio introducing the next segment — Morning Edition, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Prairie Home Companion (“…hear that old piano, from down the avenuuuu….”) — they all bring me home, make me feel okay, the world is spinning along in an orderly fashion. Even as the news of this era is never okay, I am for the moment because those long familiar tunes have become part of my psyche over the years.
Birdsong is a mighty lure as well as a mighty memory jogger. My very favorite is the chickadee, who I learned as a child was pronouncing my sister’s name as she walked to kindergarten: “Dee Dee, Dee Dee.” The next year, when I was walking to kindergarten, I of course expected my own bird. I’ve yet to hear any winged friend tweeting “Hey, Collie.’
Cell phone ringtones are a sign of our fondness for certain sounds — a real telephone bell like the kind we grew up with, the same sound coming out of all our phones whether they were a box on the wall or the square black phone in the niche in the hall. In a meeting I attended once, a fellow’s phone let out a startling cock-a-doodle-do. Scared half of us and made the other half laugh. Some folks pick a different ring for each family member, I suppose the ring having something to do with the personality? I like that.
My neighbor has a Prius automobile. It is battery operated and makes no noise at all, just glides past like it’s on a downhill slope with the motor turned off. I both like the idea and am disconcerted by it. Looking up to see it or its cousin as I’m about to cross the street, having not heard it approach, takes some getting used to.
I’ve lost my sense of smell, and my eyes are not what they once were; I sincerely hope my sense of hearing remains. The sounds of a long life are a comfort as are the new sounds — a great grandchild saying “Gramma Collie” for the first time; hip-hop, which I love for the beat (I usually can’t understand the words, which I understand is a blessing).
Memory is not my most accurate recording device, but the sounds from it suit me fine.
