Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Smells of the season

I was out walking over lunch today and smelled the flowers of some Russian olive bushes. I think it's a pretty distinctive smell, and it always reminds me of summer, specifically swimming at the municipal pool near my house when I was a tweener. I don't think of the place otherwise, but when I smell Russian olive flowers, it takes me right back to that place and time.

Another smell that does that is the smell of asphalt, again, in the summertime. The grade school across the street from the first house I lived in repaved their parking lot one summer, and ever since, the smell puts a picture into my head of the parking lot as seen from the front yard of that house.

Funny how smells can be so powerful. I'm sure there are others that do the same thing, but those were the two I thought about today, as summer's holding back a bit and we're having some rainy weather.

How about you? Any smells that just take you back to a place and time?

In other news, I took Mr W to his second karate class today. He had a full day at camp, and then the karate afterwards. He was whooped by the time it was time to go to bed. It's good to be that tired and have the next 9.5 hours to do nothing but sleep. I thought the class was neat, and he seemed to like it. I got to knit for an hour, while they practiced blocks and punches.

3 comments:

  1. Peonies take me to my Grandmother's backyard.

    Glad Mr. W is liking the karate. I use that time for being yarny as well, despite Kasia running around and "Hey, Mom"-ing me the whole time.

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  2. Yea for karate! When Jacob first tested for the next level of belt, I had this overwhelming and confusing emotional reaction--I was laughing, almost hysterically/ crying. Fortunately, the incident didn't repeat on the subsequent belts.

    Russian Olives remind me of summers when I was 17 and 18 working in a small office in Aurora.

    I have lots of scent triggers, for sure!

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  3. Yeah, the karate is more physical than I thought it would be, and I'm trying hard to be "oh, you like it? That's good" vs. "I really want you to like this!!!" which seems to turn them off really fast.

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Hi, sorry to make the humans do an extra step.