Triggers

Farm Irrigators
On my morning run there’s a spot that smells of a cotton field, triggering an intense memory of harvesting cotton on the King Ranch my summer years in high school. Other major associations that have hit me lately: Moth balls and a visit to Wichita Falls in Kindergarten; Plowed weeds and a stint cleaning rotten grain from a massive silo (hell on earth); Pesticides and getting bitched out by a crop duster for running over his hose (which he ran across the road) used to mix his chemicals; brake fluid and the failure of a hydraulic fitting while attaching a disk plow. And, I can’t walk by a flower shop without remembering all the time I spent in my parent’s own flower shop, mostly playing in the fridge room. What a great smell.

4 thoughts on “Triggers

  1. Seeing those sprinkler heads makes me thing of the golf course at Hermann Park and all the hours we spent out there trashing out the greens early in the morning, The smell of creosote and the many hours that we spent along railroads hoping trains to school and to nowhere in particular. A friend and I tried to capture a skunk and ended up on the wrong end of the deal. Of smells coming from the storm sewers and the miles that we roamed in the sewers of Houston, just to see how far we could go. Of bullshit and urine and the hours that we spent at the Port City stockyards looking for snakes and watching the slaughter and processing of cattle. Weird how smells bring back such vivid memories.

  2. The area of the brain that stores the memory of smells is closely tied to the same area that stores emotional memory, hence the memory of the smell evokes the emotion you felt earlier. It may restore a carefree feeling of youth, or wishing you were anywhere else but out in a field wet with humidity, 100 degrees, and putting in long 12 hour days. For me, it’s the scent of my babies right below their ears in the soft neck area and my indescribable contentment. I’ll never forget either.. Smell of paper and September gin smoke brings the excitement of a new school year. Is it possible that we could also influence our memory of a negative event by interjecting a positive aroma?

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