The house was rather small. No central heat or air conditioning. Just a gas floor furnace in the hall and an old evaporative cooler with a single large vent into the same narrow hallway. This necessitated slightly raised windows in each of the two bedrooms to “pull” the cool air into those rooms.
The open window in the front bedroom, belonging to my sister and me, let in the heady fragrance from the large pink rose bush just outside. We would drift off to sleep on summer evenings with the smell of those intense blooms and the occasional high-pitched drone of a mosquito that had somehow made its way through a snag in the old window screen.
To this day, the smell of roses takes me back to that room, that house, that idyllic feel of a simple childhood spent growing up on Blair Street in the 60’s. What life was like then is not what life is like today. In my mind, that time was magical; although, I am sure it really was not. But, viewed across space and time, the memories surface as vintage toned snapshots or snippets of old 8mm film jerking to an abrupt halt at the end.
I live only four blocks from that house where I spent my childhood. I walk past it occasionally in my effort to log those daily steps. No longer a buttery yellow color with a brick red porch and white park bench out front, it is now run down and unkempt. It hurts me to see it this way. Some days, I will actually walk the other direction to avoid it. So, I can remember it the way it used to be.
Today overlapping with yesterday, if only in a remembrance. It tugs at the heartstrings, but also brings a slight melancholy. And yet, I still want to drive to the nearest nursery and find an old-fashioned, highly perfumed pink rosebush to plant outside my bedroom window.
The power of scent in a memory…
Welcome to the porch... 