Do you remember the last time something you smelled brought on a flood of memories?I'm currently reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time (don't worry, not all seven volumes!) and the narrator is having trouble trying to sit and make himself remember his childhood. Then, when he bites into a tea-soaked madeleine one day, the smell and then taste of the little biscuit bring back all of the memories of his life in Combray.
Proust's writing is about involuntary memory--that memory which gushes in after one of your senses is awakened.
Your sense of smell is actually the strongest memory agent. The olfactory bulb is part of system (limbic system) located next to an area associated with memory and feeling.
Tonight I prepared chicken and rice with rosemary (borrowed) for dinner (by borrowed, I mean it will grow back from where I gathered it). The craziest thing happened...as soon as I opened the bag of brown rice and took a whiff...
giant tub kindergarten
rice grains slipping through my fingers Mrs. Kelly
stations Mrs. Carlson
scoops
play classroom Hollydale
I was immediately thrown into my kindergarten classroom and had my hands in one of those big standing tubs full of rice during station time (don't worry, we had one full of sand too). It made me smile; I had experienced involuntary memories through smell, or what we call a "Proustian" moment.
Have you had a Proustian moment lately?
Proust's writing is about involuntary memory--that memory which gushes in after one of your senses is awakened.
Your sense of smell is actually the strongest memory agent. The olfactory bulb is part of system (limbic system) located next to an area associated with memory and feeling.
Tonight I prepared chicken and rice with rosemary (borrowed) for dinner (by borrowed, I mean it will grow back from where I gathered it). The craziest thing happened...as soon as I opened the bag of brown rice and took a whiff...
giant tub kindergarten
rice grains slipping through my fingers Mrs. Kelly
stations Mrs. Carlson
scoops
play classroom Hollydale
I was immediately thrown into my kindergarten classroom and had my hands in one of those big standing tubs full of rice during station time (don't worry, we had one full of sand too). It made me smile; I had experienced involuntary memories through smell, or what we call a "Proustian" moment.
Have you had a Proustian moment lately?
2 comments:
i love you. and smell memories. and hollydale. and mrs. crofts class totally had a rice bin too :) the smell also makes me think of bean bags filled with rice
and those big brown craft erasers. awesome. elementary school. those were the hollydale hooter days. ahhhhhh.
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