My first memory

What is the very earliest memory that you have of a scent?

 

Thinking of the first memory that you may have is already difficult at the best of times, but the first memory of a scent? Impossible! And yet, scents are all around us and in a split second they can trigger the memory, however fleeting, of a place, a person, or of a moment.

Before getting married, my mom worked in a department store. I have never been clear which department she actually worked in, but she had brought home a whole box of scented cards. They were sample cards for Chantilly de Houbigant. This was before the sample vials. Those were blotting paper cards, slightly larger than a playing card. They had a picture of the perfume bottle on one side and came pre-sprayed with the fragrance. Those cards were to be given to clients. Why they ended up at our house…. I don’t want to know!

Years later, married and with kids, my mother was still using those cards as drawer liners. They were everywhere. Every sweater, t-shirt, shirt smelled of Chantilly. I remember going through drawers just to find those cards and to inhale that –by then- almost gone perfume.

Do you have an early scent memory?