Sounds of childhood

[pbray]

Science tells us that smell is the sense most keenly tied to memory, but as a lifelong allergy sufferer, I've personally never found that to be true. My memories are tied most firmly to sounds, often in surprising ways.

Christmas in south Florida is a strange experience--I think this is the fourth year that I've joined my brother and his family for a Florida Christmas, but it still never feels like Christmas. It's just an odd time of year when there's decorations, small children wired on sugar and a gift exchange ritual.

This Christmas eve we decided to attend mass, the first time the girls had been in church since Camila's baptism. For most of my adult life I've only gone to mass when the occasion demanded it--weddings, funerals, baptisms, and escorting elderly family members. But as the priest spoke the opening blessing I was filled with a wave of nostalgia and longing. It wasn't the experience of mass but the sound of his voice. He spoke with the accent and cadence of a Kerryman, and I was immediately swept back to my childhood--the sound of my grandparents and their friends, and the mysterious folks who appeared at major holidays, whose connections with the family I never quite understood. Second cousins, godchildren, neighbors who'd grown up in the same town in Ireland, and a woman that had once lived in the same apartment house but was still considered family decades later, they filled my grandmother's house at the holidays, and gathered in the corners to share news of home.

Then, on Christmas Day, my brother unveiled his newest acquisition--an electric carving knife. As he revved it up before carving the turkey, I exclaimed, "You know what that is? It's the sound of every Sunday dinner at Outlook Avenue." He revved the knife again, and immediately agreed.

The electric carving knife was a very big deal when I was a kid, which was still the era of roast beef for Sunday dinner. (Unless, of course, there was a turkey. In the Sullivan family turkey was the meal of choice for special occasions, even in the summer.) But whatever the meat, each time the electric carving knife was ceremoniously brought out, and as the meat was carved, I'd be helping my grandmother carrying bowls of food into the dining room. Just hearing that sound made me feel as if I closed my eyes I'd be magically transported to her kitchen.

Other people remember the smell of pumpkin pie, or how the scent of fresh baked cookies filled the house. Me? I'm remembering the soft lilt of my grandparents' voices, and the way they called my name.

Comments

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

For me, Christmas sounds like Burl Ives. :)

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

You said "electric carving knife" and Voila, I was at my patents' house. ;)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Electric carving knife for me is dinner with the in-laws. I don't think anyone in my family even knows that electric carving knives exist.

I have strong associations with smells, but the strongest ones are music. I can't hear (or sing) "For Unto Us a Child Is Born" without remembering the first time my dad took me to hear my mom sing in Messiah, when I was four. (I had to take a nap in the afternoon. I insisted on choosing my own clothes, and ended up looking very silly. I was annoyed with my dad because he wore running shoes instead of fancy shoes, and no tie.) The Barenaked Ladies' "What a Good Boy" will forever remind me of the guy I dated in grade 12, who sang it to me in the car on our first date. (It was Christmas vacation, and very cold. The car was one of those '80s Oldsmobiles big enough to mow down a small country. We had gone out for pasta and to see Beauty and the Beast with my friend JR and her boyfriend. JR was stoked because she had succeeded in setting us up, and getting a bit obnoxious about it.) Anything from the U2 album The Joshua Tree takes me right back to Alberta Youth Choir camp in 1991. And so on...

It can be embarrassing, because bits of music make me cry, or laugh, or whatever, for no reason I can articulate to other people.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Nice post. When are you writing a memoir?

And is it possible to stay awake longer than fifteen minutes after a turkey dinner in summertime?