Every time I pour hot water over a Bushels teabag I think of my grandfather. Every single time. I am instantly transported back to the old kitchen, him sitting at the head of the heavy kitchen table stirring his sickly sweet, hot black tea.
I don’t have mine the same. In fact I have milk and only one sugar, where he had three. But that initial smell of hot tea is just the same. It makes me smile, some days it makes me sad and other days it is only part of a second that the thought is in my head but it still appears. It doesn’t happen with other brands of tea either. Only Bushels. It must have been the brand he drank, but I don’t remember.
Funny how the nose can be such a link to the past. That sense of smell. My grandfather died nearly twenty years ago and didn’t live in the house I visualise him in for the last ten years of his life. Is there something significant about my early childhood visits to that house, or did he change tea brands when he left the old place?
I had a similar feeling this morning when I dropped my daughter at school. The main school building is a similar style to one of the primary schools I attended, although in a different part of Australia, but they all smell the same. Is it a primary school thing? Is it related to the red brick building or the children in it? And surely we were different kinds of kids to those of today?
Smell is so important and can lend much to our writing. A smell can evoke a feeling, transport us to our childhood terrors, or joys, or wonders. It can remind us of lives lost, loves lost and new lives given. I shall try to ensure my senses include smell in my writing today. And while I’m out and about I will try to see what else I can smell and where it takes me. Just thinking about where the two scents from above have taken me has also provided some ideas for stories. Where will your nose take you today?
Happy Scribbles
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