Olfactory Triggers

The Smeller's the Teller

We love stories. All our stories have similarities, but each one of us, every individual, is unique. I think the reason we love listening to stories is to rediscover our own memories stirred up from hearing others' tales. Storytelling probably began around the safety of a fire, a time and place to recount events, make plans, discuss shared experiences, and enjoy a a good story, our first entertainment. Stories allow us to live others' experiences vicariously. Because we love stories, they are our greatest teaching tool behind actual experience. We love hearing and telling stories! As readers we know the images that stick with us and evoke our strongest emotions, are the ones that appeal to our senses, so as writers and storytellers those are the details we try to deliver.

This site will be mainly dedicated to stories, and often they will take the form of poems because I am a poet. That's the form I prefer to write in. These entries will contain poems, most often narrative poems, but that's not a promise. You can't trust a poet to always “make sense.” When people ask me out of frustration, “Why do poets do that shit? It doesn't make sense!” My response is often a question: “Does life make sense to you?” Anyhoo, that's a head's up, proceed at your own risk.

My last piece related a few stories about my granddad, my mother's father, and when an old friend from my youth contacted me after reading “The Good German” poem, he told me that the references to my grandfather's closet, the odors of stale cigar smoke in hanging clothes, the smell of shoe leather and human sweat in fabric, all transported him back to when he went through his mother's belongings after she died. Those smells of her things acted like a tsunami of memory and emotion. He was overcome by that wave of love evoked by those sensory images. His account reminded me of my own “mother stories” and the mysterious power of smell. So when I considered which way to go for this next entry, my mother came to mind. She certainly could generate a column of stories dedicated to her alone for as long as I might be around, but we'll mix it up, let it generate what it does organically, though she will make appearances whenever she has two-bits worth to add on a topic.

Initially, my old pal's “mother memory” of transcendent smells made me think of a story my cousin told me about her dad, my uncle. After his wife of fifty-plus years passed away and left him alone in their house, he refused to clean out her closet, and he kept her housecoat hanging behind the bathroom door. That story and the memory of that scene from “Brokeback Mountain” where Heath Ledger's character goes up to his ex-lover's room after he'd died (years after they'd called it quits) and buries his face in his old lover's clothes. Those smells released all his emotions of love, loss, and regret. The power of smell unlocks deep emotional memories. My cousin's story about her dad hanging onto his wife's things felt haunting (in a good, sad way) and since it was around the time of the Day of the Dead, all of that triggered this poem for me.

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Day of The Dead Dream

I visited Uncle Paul last night

At his house in Dillon, a dream so real

I was shaken upon waking

In the early morning dark

To find him gone as my mom,

Again.

The soft-muffled, warm

Tone of his voice was reassuring as

The smile that framed it. And this

Was after Aunt Sukie had died, when

He lived alone. Even then he was

The perfect host, as if the effort to please

His guests could help distract for awhile

The absence in his chest, his day,

His bed—an aching hole

The whole dream of her couldn’t fill.

She was still with him (but not with him)

All of the time . . . at breakfast, at night

When he woke alone and called out,

Crawled out of bed, turned on the lights

And searched every room, hoping

To find her ghost waiting there—

In the basement, the pantry, the hall closet,

On the stairs, wherever she was at—

He wanted to bring her back

Or follow her away, leave

His charred landscape, return to verdant days.

He knew it was silly, maybe even a little strange

To some that her housecoat still hung

Behind the bathroom door. Like her hair

In the brush lying on their dresser, he clung

To her sweaters in the closet and her blouses

And coats—the aroma of her clothes—her breath

And skin held in his nose.

When his legs failed,

They moved him to assisted living

Where he resided till his body finally quit.

How does a broken heart keep beating

For ten years? I bet if we drove

Down to Dillon on the Day of the Dead,

Uncle Paul would be kneading

Bread on the kitchen table

And waltzing in the dining room

In a cloud of flour dust

With that wiry haired girl of his dreams.

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Of course it's a poem, a story, an entertainment, so it's my creation “based” on real life, both fact and fiction. It's a love poem, and I believe the olfactory sense's only fair rival in the battle of the which sense is more closely tied to our emotions around love, I’d guess that would be sound, in particular music, those songs from our past. But that's another topic, and one dear to my heart, so you are certain to hear about the teleporting power of tunes at another time.

I'll conclude with another poem that came to mind when my friend related his story about his mom. That reminded me of the following whiff of my mother I discovered in the basement a few years ago. Thanks for coming along. I hope these smelly stories lead you into your own memories of love. Please share anything you'd like to add. Consider this little spot your campfire.

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Threading the Needle

Mother’s sewing box

sat atop The Old Man’s chest

of drawers. It was made of cedar

covered with tin, painted gold,

the lid hinged. It held thread

and needles, stick pins and safety

pins, lace, yarn, razor blades and two

thimbles, a tape measure and

Sucrets tin filled with more pins

and a needle threader. 

There was a pair of scissors

and a Zip-Fix (the modern marvel

tool that fixed broken zippers

on the garment!) plus lots of

scraps of cloth, a bra strap

extension, a hand-me-down

pin cushion, basting tape,

and a hem ripper.

Of course there were buttons: all kinds,

shapes, and sizes, because at heart,

this box was mostly Mother’s

button-repair station. Granted,

she sewed on plenty of knee patches,

hemmed cuffs and dresses,

those dutiful extensions, but

she never claimed to be a seamstress

(though she darned a few hundred

wool socks in her time) mainly

she tried to keep buttonholes filled.

I don’t know why I was surprised

to find her inside the sewing box

(undisguised by the pungent odors

of wood and metal) but there she was,

pins between her lips and horn rims

perched on the end of her long,

German nose, digging for a bobbin,

some color that would match

the thread of her chore

paused under the pressure foot

of the old Singer machine

that vibrated the kitchen table

with every seam she’d treadle.

Her lines may not have been factory

straight, but nobody cared much

about appearances in a little iron-horse

town where the darkened bedrooms

reeked of cigarettes and whiskey

in the middle of the day,

and the church pews were filled

with women and kids.

I discovered it rummaging

through boxes of Mother’s stuff

I’d packed two years before,

after she’d died unexpectedly

at eighty-nine (hard for us to imagine

her not being around all the time).

I was looking for her recipes

and rolling pin when I found the gold

box and opened the lid, whiffed her

setting up the Singer and peering 

over her rims knowingly

as she asked me to sneak in her room

and grab the sewing box.

One always tip-toed, coming or going,

in the dragon’s lair where snorts

and snores sawed the thick, smoky,

booze-sweet air, shades pulled,

doors closed. That dragon breath

conjured monsters, battles,

fires forged in the gut—horrors

no one wanted to know. That smell—

vivid as Vitalis, moth balls, 

or fresh trout in a creel—taught me

how to navigate Hell.

But no outside fragrances ever

penetrated the sewing box.

It was as stable as the woman

who dug through it 

searching for thread and a button, 

just the right color and size . . .

stitching, patching, threading

the needle once again to secure

our cuffs and collars

against the cold and wind.