Olfactory Deja Vu

From time to time a memory is triggered by a song, or a place, or a taste. But never before have I had such a strong experience triggered by a smell. Not only was I thrust backward in time, but for a brief moment I could actually feel the emotions of a time long gone.

Tonight I was walking my 5-year-old Havanese, Lucy. We have made nightly walks a ritual that both she and I look forward to. Tonight our walk took us past a home where a man was mowing the lawn. It is pertinent to the story to say that this lawn is not the most pristine in the subdivision. By the smell, I'd say there was a fair amount of alfalfa mixed in the grass. And that was the trigger.

As we walked past this yard, grass/alfalfa being mowed, I was virtually slammed with a series of flashbacks. It was just like in the movies...pictures and emotions flashing through me like electricity. I was (virtually speaking, of course) a teenager again.

• It is summer. Haybaling season. It's Saturday afternoon.
• I am driving the baler tractor on the side hill across the road. I'm frightened and inexperienced, and worried about the tractor tipping over onto its side on the steep hill. When I'm on the straightaway, I'm bored out of my mind.
• I have the red bandana kerchief on. There is grey dust clinging to the hairs on my arms, and I know I'll be blowing black out of my nose the rest of the night.
• I can see the thin, blue, curving tape that is the Turkey river weaving its way through our farm, and the limestone bluff across the river. It's a familiar view, and in my adult mind I realize that I had no clue how beautiful it was. 
• My dad is yelling at me - I can't hear him clearly. I want desperately to please him, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
• I'm daydreaming about the date I hope will happen tonight. I'm planning what to wear, where we will go, what I will say.
• I'm filled with hope and enthusiasm about the future. I dream of college and big city hospitals and marrying the man of my dreams. I'm absolutely certain he doesn't live on a farm.
• I'm secretly glad that I'm not on the wagon stacking bales, but I feel guilty at the same time. I wish I could throw bales as well as my brothers. I hate being bested by a boy younger than me.

And just as quickly, I'm 51 again. 30 seconds, if that. A few steps further, and the scent of alfalfa is gone. I try to hang onto it; to stretch it and make it last. Like a dream you wake from too soon, I try to go back to that place. But it was gone.