Scents of Time

It is amazing--absolutely baffling, actually--to me how a smell can bring me to a different place.  This morning, I was at work and shredding some papers when I caught a scent that brought me back to my childhood.  I don't know if it was the machine or the ink or the lubricating oil that goes in the machine, but it smelled like newspaper wax.  Some people don't know that my grandfather, "Pop," was a newspaper publisher; and I spent every summer of my life a newspaper office when I was growing up. I'm positive that newspapers aren't composed the same way anymore; but back in my day (wow, I'm old), the ads and articles would be composed on the computer, printed off and cut out, and then run through this wax machine that would put a post-it note type of wax on the bottom side--that way you could peel the paper off and put it somewhere else without it ripping.  I must have stuck my fingers in that hot wax a million times, watching it dry and then dipping them again to make these thick wax finger puppet-type things.  It was so addictive.  Then, once they got thick enough, I'd peel them off and drop the wax back into the machine to watch it melt.

But today, I smelled that wax; and it was like going home.  I honestly went back in time and could see the old composing room just as it was in the early '90s.  I could smell the newspaper ink from the press room too.

My sense of smell is incredible; it literally transports me sometimes.  There are certain colognes and perfumes, for example, that do that to me. Shortly after we put my Pop in the nursing home (we lost him to Alzheimer's in September), I was riding the Metro in D.C.; and a man passed me who was wearing Bay Rum.  As you've probably guessed, that was my Pop's scent.  I felt so many emotions:  familiarity, anger, despair, and--again--home that I just broke down and cried right there.

But today, at least, my sense of smell didn't fail me.  It didn't lead me into sadness; it did the opposite.  I got a little piece of my childhood back, even if only for the time it took to shred a few papers.  I wonder where it will lead me tomorrow...