I'm sure everyone is familiar with Marcel Proust's famous "madeleine moment" in his novel À la recherche du temps perdu (usually translated in English as In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past).
Proust coined the term "involuntary memory" to describe when a particular sensation experienced in the present (taste, smell, touch, sight, or sound) automatically triggers an unintended memory of the past. Proust knew involuntary memory triggers contain the "essence of the past" and are much more powerful and evocative than anything related to a voluntary memory. A triggered involuntary memory can be benign (as in nostalgic recollection) or traumatic (as in PTSD).
My own benign involuntary memory is triggered by the smell of creosote. Absolutely nothing can take me right back to childhood like that distinct and pungent aroma.
Why creosote, of all things?
As stated in my post last month concerning my red ride 'em pony --
"We lived right between the CPR railway tracks and the local Manitoba Telephone System pole yard, where MTS stored its telephone poles prior to use."
Back in those days, wooden railway ties and wooden utility poles were all heavily soaked in creosote to prevent rot and damage from insects, fungi, etc. found in the earth. Today, use of this carcinogenic coal-tar-derived wood preservative is restricted or obsolete, and therefore the smell of creosote is not as commonly encountered anymore. But for me, all it takes is one unexpected whiff somewhere or another and BAM, once more I'm a small child crossing the railway tracks to go to school or walking through the pole yard on a hot summer day.
Have you had a "madeleine moment"
and what sensation triggered it?
30 comments:
...back in the late '70s when I was in the landscape business, I built a long retaining wall using used railroad ties. The wall needed 4 trailer loads of ties. I started the job wearing an old pair of jeans and finish the job wearing the same pair and then they went in the trash! I know and remember creosote well.
The smell of a sudden rain on hot city streets is always a madeleine moment for me. I love yours.
you, just mentioning creosote, flashed me straight back to leaning against the telephone pole in front of my house waiting for friends to show up to play 'hide and seek' or 'mother may i'. i remember getting splinters from those old telephone poles too. funny any of us are still alive after being exposed to all of that stuff back then. thank for the memories!
I got a whiff of creosote in my house reading this post.
Odd.
I have several sense memories that when they hit me take me back to a difference. The smell of pine trees on a clear cool day takes me back to our family vacationing at Lake Tahoe in the Summers.
Lovely memories.
Hello Debra, A lot of things remind me of past places and people, but in an ordinary way or chain of association. Your example, creosote, makes me recall treated lumber, or the creosote bucket encountered in some places, but not an entire past mise-en-scene. But my associations with that substance were not as vivid as yours. I guess that I am either insensitive or super-sensitive.
--Jim
I have many "madeleine moments", but one of the strongest for me is the smell of fresh cut lumber and sawdust. I'm a little girl again in my Dad's carpentry shop, spending hours having imaginary tea parties with my stuffed toys while Dad made cabinets, sweeping up the sawdust or feeding end-cuts of wood into the pot bellied stove on cold autumn evenings as his helper.
I think of my Mom when I sneeze multiple times but that is not a smell trigger, although it does involve my nose. Does that count?
@ Ellen D. -- Oh yes, that counts. Involuntary memories can be triggered by any of the five senses, not just smell.
The sight of a hose brings me back to hayrides with my grandfather and uncle. Pleasant memories for sure. I cannot imagine what PTSD is like…
The smell of pizza and orange pop on someones breath, reminds me of my first boyfriend.
That is so interesting. When I was a kid we lived right next to the rail road. That smell makes me sick to this day. However, as kids we has so much fun playing on the tracks, putting pennies down to see if the got smashed. Thanks for the memory. Have a very nice day.
I am so embarrassed. I had such an experience a few weeks ago that hit like a truck, but now for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Don't get old and forgetful, is all I'm saying.
This is going to sound bonkers, but I worked in a warehouse in which some of what was stored were rubber flip flops in bright colors, and it always made me think of saltwater taffy!
I do buy creosote from Costco for tea normally.
I think smells do it mostly for me. I never knew what that was called. Always learn something from you. Hope you are having a good week.
Anything that triggers nostalgic recollection is a good thing! I recently had a song to do so but had to call my older sister to ask her why hearing the song made me happy! Look out for it on a future post!!
OMG
My Madeleine moment hits when it rains in the summer. It's a combo of dry earth getting wet and vegetation. It reminds me of playing Cops and Robbers with the older boys in my neighborhood...
Yep.
XOXO
My life is full of madeleine moments. My mind is triggered by so many things.
Our street was paved in asphalt. In the hot of summer, it would melt. Little children didn't care; we ran quickly through it to cross the street. And tracked it into the house, to our mother's despair. Sometimes I still get to smell asphalt. When a road crew is out patching cracks with their tar kettle, for instance. Whammo, right back on our hot asphalt childhood street.
I'm sure I have madeiline moments but I can't think of any right now. I haven't experienced this, but I know if I smelled pickled cooking it would make me sick. We all got sick when my mom made pickles.
Love,
Janie
I was thinking about that wet dog smell. I have had some happy moments. It is not something that you can take everywhere, but it is definitely a smell.
Once I was hit by a wave of nostalgia just standing on a street corner not far where I lived in San Francisco. It took me a while to realize that a street car down the block was from Washington DC. (They run restored street cars in SF painted in their original liveries from their cities of origin.) Although I grew up in the suburbs of DC, we rarely went into the city and I have no memory of seeing street cars there. Five minutes before I was hit by the nostalgia, I could not have told you what colors DC used, but that streetcar in those colors rang a bell deep in my memory.
Smell is a big trigger for me, there is a city air smell that takes me back the first grade in Phoenix, walking to school in the cool morning air. Music is a strong trigger, sometimes positive, sometimes not. "Midnight at the Oasis" takes me back to early spring bee yards with my father - he found much more meaning in the lyrics than I did.
I could smell creosote as I read. Or rather remember the smell.
There are lots of triggers for me, mostly songs and scents. A combination scent of eucalyptus and redwood trees takes me back to my childhood in California.
You mentioning creosote took me to sitting with my toddler daughter on a makeshift step we made from a railway tie after it became clear to us that the wood was rotted. It was a temporary solution...my daughter and I sat one up from the creosote railway tie and looked for ants. She'll be 30 this year and she was likely about 3 then.
Love this post.
Lots of things provide these moments for me: music, old commercial jingles, smells, etc...I finally found my grandmother's long-lost chocolate cupcake recipe and when I made them, as soon as I added 1 cup of boiling water I was transported back to my childhood in her kitchen. The smell was exact!
Sometimes a smell would remind me of a berry that grew in my Grandmothers garden, that I would squash between my fingers and smell the fragrance when I was a child. Sadly, I no longer am triggered into those memories, and I miss that. Aparent whatever reminded me and brought back that fragrance so strongly in my nose no longer exists in my space. A pity. I always enjoyed the sensation.
such a lovely story about your childhood :)
childhood memories seem to wait to spring up indeed .i think them among biggest blessings because they keep our old and younger version alive in us .
i grew un in lush village full of gardens and fields -stream and hills surrounding it so every image having any such thing triggers involuntary memories instantly
furthermore cooking particular food ,pealing veggies or preparing something for family or even doing yearly deep cleanings bring back so many memories that belong to my mother :)
thanks for this one
Wow. What a trigger moment for you, and of course it's something unusual. :)
I love that you have this memory though.
Mine pop up here and there; sometimes it's the whiff of a perfume or something sweet that brings me back to all those Avon samples we used to have around the house.
I tell ya', smells and sounds have the magic of time travel. It's so neat. Sometimes I'll leave my kitchen and when I return, I smell Mamam's kitchen (gram). Bittersweet because she's passed. Still though, a very neat thing, this time travel through sound and smell.
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