Hedonistically, Olfactorial Moment
The other day, I had what can only be characterized as a hedonistic, olfactory experience with a flower. The aforementioned flower was found in our front yard courtesy of a sweet little 2-year old, flower-loving girl. It is yellow, has about 7 petals and is often the victim of my daughter’s love of flower-picking. After happily snapping its stem in half, she brought it over to me and, with due caution, I took a sniff, unsure as to what aroma awaited me. But then it hit me, a vivid and enjoyable memory. I had to get more, so I followed the initial sniff with one that might be confused for trying to inhale the flower up one of my nostrils.
You know how some smells can take you back to a specific time and place? In fact, I have heard that our sense of smell is the sense most strongly attached to subconscious memories. This particular smell brought me back to the times during college when Jo and I would drive from Jackson to her parents house in Franklin. It was on highway 100, after exiting the interstate on a downhill, windy road with a forest all around and, given the right time of the year, saturated with the scent of honeysuckle. And that is right where the scent took me, driving down TN-100 with the windows rolled down and honeysuckle in the air.
