Sensory memory is peculiar. It seems to, at times, emerge from nothing. I was making my morning coffee when the distinct and unmistakable scent of rabbit fur came to me. Having rabbits at different times in my life, I'm familiar with their earthy, clean scent, but years have passed since I was reminded of it. It brought innocence to mind, and then the thought: can innocence have a scent? I believe it has several, like the subtlety of Baby's-breath or the freshness of clean linen. Yet if I were to describe this specific kind, it would be a combination of damp twigs and pine, dried grass and warm cotton. Like a field in the summer or a forest after the rain. Somehow, both. And somehow, more abstractly, a grey sky pouring through the windows of a bedroom in November, a house with a yellow hallway, a balcony in Brooklyn overlooking Evergreens—echoes of places that once held this scent.
I was just making my morning coffee, but now I'm thinking of forests, and innocence, and past homes. Sometimes, a thing we have no control over will come upon us, not good or bad, but gently invasive—inviting itself into our unassuming morning, into the meaning we assign to it.
It all leads me to wonder: what if, when asked about our day, instead of talking about what we did on the surface, we shared the things that happen beneath the surface? A memory prompted by a scent, how its exact origin is a mystery; the innocence of certain creatures, what we still love in a sweet way, even though it's no longer here—and even though it might not be understood—what if we tried?
