The smell of balsams almost transports me to pleasant times. I can be hiking along a trail when the scent hits me, and all of a sudden, my thought process deviate from where I am going to where I’ve been; on the coast of Maine or hunting for a Christmas tree with my family. I enjoy these detours and can name half a dozen smell and sound experiences that can trip the experience.
With nothing but white ice and snow in the woods, most of my favorite trip wires for memory are a few months away. So I have to work that much harder to stir them. The slight scent coming from the flowers, the smell of the woods in spring rain, or the sound of the little waterfall at the pond, all these I have to work hard to stir into life.
I’ve often wished I could bottle a spring morning by the pond or an afternoon fussing with the flowers in the garden. Instead, I recollect minutes when I thought those very thoughts and tried to impress the whole experience into firm memory so I could recall it in February.
Thinking of it I can almost sense that hint of a warm breeze and a glimpse of the flowers. That will have to do for another month or so.