Rose Water

Yesterday I read “Remembering and Being Remembered,” an article written by Philip Anderson (https://www.independentliving.co.uk/philip-anderson/remembering-and-being-remembered/) and, as is the case every time I read any of Philip's articles, so many thoughts ran through my mind.

In Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust asks:
“Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?”

For Proust, it was the taste and smell of the morsels of a madeleine – a tiny shell-shaped sponge cake.

For many, it's petrichor or the aroma of apple pie or the smell of black licorice that triggers memories.

For me?

Various scents take me back, each to a different place and time in my life.

I have no recollection of ever drinking root beer as a child, and yet every time I smell it, I'm a five-year-old living in Virginia.

The smell of chlorine takes me to nine-year-old Noosha in the swimming pool in Tunis and brings with it Tuesdays, sliced lemons, and sunsets.

A whiff of cardamom takes me to my adolescence in Tehran, where my father crushed the light-green papery shell of a single pod with his fingers above the tea pot and let the little black seeds fall in.

And the fragrance of rose water takes me back to my grandmother – and so many memories come flooding back from different times in my life – and all I feel is love and joy. 
https://gratigi.blogspot.com/2021/06/heshmat-ravaghi.html