SMELLS LIKE FIFTH GRADE

I am constantly in awe of the human brain and the memories it is able to store. The minutia of thought and emotions, a mere smell or quick turn of my head can evoke the most vivid of memories or recollection of a time gone by in my short and relatively uneventful life.


Opening the door this beautiful sunny morning, I let loose the dogs for their morning ritual of running around the fenced in yard. A giant playpen, it is where they play with each other as they chase and jump and playfully maul. Even though they are all different shapes and sizes, it is a way of expressing their love for each other. One will jump on the back of the other, trying to nip at their collars, or run around to the front, tugging on their ears. It is never done in anger, and if they could laugh, I am sure there would be large guffaws and back slapping as they race round the yard, doing lap after lap of their own Indy 500.

They learn from each other and they teach each other.

As I opened the screen door, I breathe deep the air. It is a clear, winter morning and the wind has died down. After a few days of wind and snow, the grassy area is replaced with the hard packed white blanket on which they will run.

But it is the smell of the air this day that holds my attention and catches my breath, for it is a smell that I have breathed in once before, seemingly eons ago. It brought back a memory in an instant that brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye.

It was a winter day in 1964 and I was in fifth grade. I was the new kid in school, yet again, for my family moved a lot. We never left New York State, but my father’s job required he manage different petroleum distribution plants. The hours were long and it seemed like he was always working, so living as close to the plant as we could was a concession my parents always made.

Although it was hard to say goodbye to friends I had made over the years, I knew that it was really a good thing for me. It taught me how to talk to anyone and to get the heart of the matter of someone in order to be their friend.

This time around, we had moved very close to the elementary school I attended. It was a move that suited me, for I loved going to school. Our house was at the top of the hill and the school was located in the gully below. Every morning I would open the back door of the kitchen and walk down the hill to be joined by the students milling around outside. We lived so close I could hear the kids laughing and yelling, playing tag or throwing snow balls.

Opening the door one sunny, winter morning, I caught the whiff of the cold breeze wafting up from the gully, bringing the voices of the children waiting for the door to opening down below. It is the smell that has stayed with me all these years and was awakened this morning, buried deep within my psyche in safekeeping for when it was called forth once again.

They saw me and I saw them. “Hey! Eileen! Come on!” they yelled and I smiled to myself that I was welcomed and loved, for that was not always the case. 

I looked towards the dogs as they circled back around to the doorway, content they had completed their laps and ready for a kiss and a cookie.

Letting them in, I lingered just a moment longer as I breathed deep the memory of being a 5th grader in the wintertime, filling my lungs and my mind once again with its sweet fragrance.