Take a deep breath, now where are you?

Well, I’ve got some time and a computer in front of me, so it’s time to write one of those thousands of blog entries that always ran through my head but never got to a computer to write. So I think it’s a pretty common random fact that scent is the sense strongest tied to memory. When I lived at home, the only scent that ever did it to me was Raspberry Rain Skintimate shower shave gel- the basement bathroom of Spanish summer camp every time. After living in a place completely new to all of my senses, I can say that it is absolutely true and always a very comforting surprise (almost right up there with the excitement and comfort of mail, almost). For a strange, inexplicable split second, I could be a thousand miles away 20 years ago. I even see the images of the place in my head.
Some are a little more common. Deodorant has brought me to Walgreens more than once, more the smell of the bottle though, not the actual deodorant. At the beginning I often went to my Dad’s cousins’ house (Jeff and Lynn) in Florida when I ran past the carpenter in the morning and had a particularly strong whiff of the sawdust. Sometimes it was my own dad’s handyman workshop though. Maybe that depended on the wood? Sometimes when I’m cooking I’ll be with my mom in the kitchen, but if it’s roasted onions it’s usually my aunt’s cooking, at her old house though, for Christmas or some other holiday. Disney World comes to me sort of frequently too, I think, though I can’t remember what has ever triggered it.
One extremely memorable time I was showering and out of nowhere for one second came something like grape juice, and I was suddenly in my old babysitter’s living room. I only went there until I was three. I hadn’t even remembered what the living room looked like, until that day in the shower. They sell dill or pickle flavoured Pringles here in Benin, and PCVs are unanimously in agreement that the inside of the can smells EXACTLY like Home Depot. Sawdust and plastic. The smell is fun, but as I’m sure you could imagine, they taste horrendous.
The best ones are so random, like my babysitter’s house, and they come and leave as quick as a dream. I even had one so super random this morning, but like a dream, it has escaped my memory now. I don’t remember where it was, but I thought, really?!? Where on Earth did that come from?? Sometimes it’s a random day in 1st grade, or maybe 10th. Sometimes it’s a birthday party or hiking trip. I can never duplicate it or predict it, and sometimes I can’t even detect any change in the smells around me that could have prompted it.
Whatever it is, I’ll surely miss it when I go. I don’t think it will happen so much at home, being back in a place so familiar to my senses. I only hope that every once in while my nose will catch something and I’ll be brought back here to Benin :-).