Honeysuckle vines take me back to my childhood. Not so much the taste but the scent. Whenever I’m on my bike and pass a vine, I have a flash of memories assaulting my brain of my brother Todd and me dissecting the yellow and white flowers and tasting the nectar.
For me, certain scents can bring brief moments of time travel. A certain whiff of Chanel No.5 can also carry me back to my early years, watching my mom dress for a date with my dad.
Some of my favorite scents would be the inside of a brand new paperback novel. I like to stick my nose inside whenever I crack open the binding. I still do this. It brings back memories of reading "Gone with the Wind" for the first time with my best friend Adryne. We were 11 years old. We sat on her front steps reading for hours, sharing our thoughts and how each scene was different from the movie. My grandmother made homemade fried pies out of fresh apples and peaches; my daddy always had a peculiar scent of the steel mill on his clothes coming home from work. These scents will always bring those days home to me.
Fresh cut watermelon and the heavy scent of roasting marshmallows takes me back to camping with my family and discovering state parks across Alabama.
There’s nothing like the scent of a library to make me happy or time spent inside a florist to make me think of when I picked out my wedding flowers back in the day.
Sometimes I wish the newborn baby scent could be bottled like an essential oil. Memories of holding my brand new babies and my granddaughter, the aroma of brand new skin is exhilarating for me. It can make my heart feel like it’s skipping a beat.
Every once in a while I’ll have a far away memory and I’ll catch a special scent from my mind, taking me back to days gone by. Those happy memories, ever so brief, will remind me of people who may no longer be with me or just a click away on a mouse. I may not be able to experience my grandmother’s fried pies but I remember the scent of her home. My daddy doesn’t work at the steel mill anymore but he’s there when I visit home and will remember my childhood with me. It’s forever tempting to stop along the trail and taste the honeysuckle nectar to recall what it’s like to be a child.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Honeysuckle vines along the trail