This morning I went outside to sit in the sunshine and have a morning cup of tea. The manager of my building complex was mowing the lawn and the smell of the freshly mown grass was in the morning air. Most of us know that smell so well and it triggers memories of childhoods and happy days.
For me, it is of a particular time of year, Spring. When the lawns are growing, the grass is springing out of the earth with such gay abandon that it is like the grass is singing with so much joy at the end of winter that it is bursting with happiness.
Sorry to my North Hemisphere Readers...
Most people who grew up in the 50's and 60's enjoyed the pleasure of a backyard and a vegetable patch. Sunday mornings were a time for the Dads to get out the mowers and ensure that the lawn reflected the pride that was felt in the family home.
I marveled at the different way people mowed lawns and still, to this day, find it a fascinating thing to behold.
Does the lawn get mowed in straight lines? If so, are they vertical or horizontal? Are they mowed in squares? Getting smaller and smaller.
One neighbour, I remember, used to mow his lawn in circles. He would start at the hills hoist clothesline and work out from there.
The ancient art of mowing the grass is like crop circles in suburbia.
How many of us today still mow a lawn? Do we even have one? If we do, is a contractor paid to perform the ritual?
That wonderful nostalgic ritual of Sunday mornings is disappearing for so many. In fact, entire generations have probably grown up without hearing that buzz and whirr of motor mowers and the waft of the smell of the freshly cut grass in the air.
The cars being washed in the driveway; the children coming home from Sunday School and getting freshly baked scones or pikelets, cookies, biscuits or pancakes with lemon juice and sugar. Yummy.
Then off to wash our bikes, or ride them with our mates to get into mischief until it was time to come home for the Sunday midday roast.
And all of this because I smelled grass in the air of a dewy spring morning in Queensland Australia!
The power of smell is one of the most powerful stirrers of nostalgia a human being can experience.
Only a few days ago, I walked past a neighbour's home. They must have just come back from the beach because the air was filled with the scent of coconut oil.
Easter of course is the smell of cinnamon from the Easter hot cross buns that we eagerly anticipated all year - in the days before they were, like Anzac biscuits, only available in April.
How many of us associate a smell with a childhood memory?
When people say that " spring is in the air " I wonder if it means the smell, the scent, the beautiful aroma of nostalgia?
The smell of nostalgia.
So many of us brought up in colder climates remember the scent of pine needles from a long forgotten walk through a forest. The delightful earthy aroma of moss by a cascading waterfall on a cold winter's day?
My daughter once told me that, when she got covid, she lost her sense of taste and smell. How tragic is that?
To lose two of her senses is a cruel thing indeed. Fortunately they have returned.
I had a friend many years ago who was a plumber and he had permanently lost both taste and smell.
He told me that had to rely on the look of his food and the texture of his food in order to derive pleasure from what had become the mundane task of eating. He explained that without taste or smell, the joy of life was lessened and he needed to up the ante on look and feel.
I remember the pleasure of being in my childhood vege patch and picking the long scarlet runner beans, the pods of peas, the carrots, potatoes and tomatoes and chomping on all of them as we carried our harvest back to the family kitchen to prepare for our meal.
The taste of those carrots would have pleased the most critical of Easter bunnies. And the peas! I can still taste them now.
While I and others these days bemoan the loss of our ability to speak our minds, hear what we choose and see what we please, it is easy to forget that we can still taste and smell without censorship.
Let us not forget the joy of the smell of the freshly mown grass or the moss on the rocks of a bush hidden waterfall or the taste of a freshly harvested homegrown vegetable or a piece of fruit.
There is nothing quite like the crunch into a homegrown apple, peach or apricot. A pineapple or mango or passionfruit.
On that note, I think I might just go back outside, sit in the sun and eat some of Redhead's homegrown pineapple. And inhale the memories of that smell so much sweeter in my memory than they do today.
