It was 1996 and I was only a short distance from FINALLY becoming an adult... As a recent high school graduate who was fresh out of Boys Ranch and into the big city (Amarillo, TX), I was learning new things on a daily basis. Probably most education I got that summer had everything to do with women... (er, girls, I suppose)
Shortly into my first taste of true freedom since the age of 13 from the predominately male Boys Ranch, I fell head over heals for a (soon to be) Senior from Tascosa High School. She had long dark hair, big beautiful eyes and a smile that made my stomach feel like I was on a roller coaster... And she spoke French! More importantly, she liked me... I was defenseless from the first time we saw each other...
Soon after our relationship began, I learned that I had a knack for spoiling people, and her in-particular. I gave her jewelry, photo frames and little creative-esqe "I Love You" nick-knacks... Basic adolescent gift giving behavior as far as I am concerned... Now, remember, this was the mid-nineties, and at the time, it didn't get much cooler than Tommy Hilfiger. Naturally, wanting to give my new lady friend the best, I bought her what any puppy love smitten, mid-pubescent dude with an itchy wallet finger would get for his first woman... Tommy Girl! A perfume made by who else? Yep... Tommy Hilfiger...
We'll get back to that.
Olfactory memory refers to the recollection of memories or events triggered by a given smell. I'm not sure if I have more of a keen sense of smell than the next guy, but it seems to me that my nose triggers more memories than thumbing through my high school yearbook...
Anytime I smell eggs frying, I think of my grandparents house in Wimberly, Texas and how I would wake up to the sound of grease popping in a cast iron skillet during my holiday visits... The sent of pinon trees takes me back to my summers as a camp counselor in the Capitan Mountains in New Mexico. And the smell of horse dung?? Lets just say I spent a few too many winters shoveling frozen excrement and bucking hay bales bigger than my 90 lb. frame than I CARE to remember...
It's always so shocking to me how incredibly VIVID the memories are... I can almost taste the bacon and eggs, HEAR the wind rustling through the pinons outside my tent, and feel the sting of the cold numbing my toes during those long Connecticut winters... I don't just think of the memories, I feel like I'm actually there...
As was the case a few days ago... Here I am in Keystone, Colorado, walking through a parking lot at the base of Keystone Ski Resort, when a woman passes by... The scent of Tommy Girl hitting my sinuses may as well have been a cinder block hitting me in the head by the hands of an MLB Allstar...
It was 1996 again. I was on a plastic patio chair next to the pool outside my first apartment on Lometa Avenue in Amarillo… There she was with that smile... Saying something in French that I didn't understand but was overwhelmingly impressed by... Wow, what a time that was, and I FELT LIKE I was there, just for a brief moment...
But wait… There's actually more to this story than me remembering my first love experience every time I stumble across the scent of a horribly outdated women's fragrance…
When I was 17/18, I had no clue what olfactory memory was, and I could have cared less… So, being that I LOVED this fragrance that I got for this girl that I LOVED… I figured, why not get it for every girl I love??? And at that time in my life, what other girl did I love? Yep… My mom.
So now, for the rest of my life, I get the benefit of olfactory memory (squared) every time I smell that good ‘ol Tommy Girl. I get to hop from getting snow cones on hot summer days to taking road trips to Newport, Rhode Island and riding horses. Sometimes it’s holding hands at the movies (with the girlfriend of course) and sometimes it’s celebrating New Years at my family’s traditional black tie event in Thompson, Connecticut…
Is there any research out there about selective olfactory memory? Can you choose which memories you pull out of the vault when you smell a smell? I’m not sure… But I’m not complaining either… It’s all good for me when it comes to Tommy Girl.
If you don’t already, take your nose a little more seriously… You’ve got a whole library of mental home movies stored up in that cerebrum of yours…
I’d like to hear what kind of stuff certain smells bring to mind for you… But until then, smell you later!
