Recent Past: Following nasal memories
It is interesting how a simple fragrance remains a memory. Not a word, not an image — I have often wondered what it is in our brain/body/psyche that actually remembers smells.
Things had gotten so busy I nearly forgot the brief moment of wonder at Devokan last summer. I’m still not sure it happened, but after talking with Dot today I don’t feel so much like I must have imagined it.
Last week, Jane and I spent some time with Dot discussing the upcoming GoH Ride for Joy on the 17th. As we walked and talked, we passed by what looked like a natural stone wall. The boulders were huge and rough — not weathered as if they’d been there a long time. I didn’t think much of that until something triggered the memory of a fragrance I’d experienced last summer. That itself was even a brief memory before I forgot about it as Jane and I walked on with Dot in search of suitable places for JoyRiders to gather before embarking on the ship and boat journeys.
Of course I couldn’t find the location of the flowers again. And Jane wouldn’t remember — I had returned after she, I and LC had taken our own joyride on a sailboat around the rather bare island. They were only there for a moment and I was so slow in remembering my camera…
I’ve never known a flower to bloom so beautifully for such a short time. I might not actually have seen anything. But today as Dot and I discussed the Ride for Joy yet again she did mention that the place where I remembered the fragrance had been affected by the land tremors. Much of the land had been changed, and perhaps the flowers have been buried.
There was that deep pool… nearby… I am certain I walked only a short distance from it before I spotted the blooming flowers. The deep, rich, reddish, purple or blue hues amazed me because they seemed to be illuminated from within the petals themselves. They were similar to Irises, but were not irises. Akin to DayLilies, but not lilies of any kind. The butterflies swarmed about them, landing, flitting, landing,settling, leaping… and suddenly they and the blooms had disappeared. Dissolved, dissipated, vanished… I was stunned and saddened. At least until the fragrance reached my nose.
I tried to sit and let the memory come to me, but couldn’t settle in one place. I did finally sit on a wooden bench for a few moments, watching the sun come up. Then, again restless, I walked around the waterfall and turned around to watch it begin to sparkle and shimmer in the slow illumination of the morning. It was beautiful. I sniffed, sniffed, hoping perhaps I could follow my nose to the flower patch of last summer? I did follow the boulder wall around and back to the gate, chuckling at myself. The yellow lilies were very pretty, but no fragrance there.
I’ve not smelled anything so heavenly before. Not just a floral fragrance, but with a hint of fruit — exotic fruit I didn’t know? Not just fruit, but a hint of earthiness that freshened the air around me? I could not tell, but I knew it was something amazing. I don’t know why I forgot, or why I finally remembered. But now that I did remember, I am determined to find it again.