Transported

I opened the tube of toothpaste to squeeze some out onto my toothbrush. For some reason, this particular time, I was transported right back to my grandparents house. Beach Drive, in Victoria. This kind of toothpaste, I have used on occasion as an adult, but it is the toothpaste they had at their house when my sisters and I would spend the night. I was suddenly recalling their old house that we loved to visit, the little room we would stay in upstairs. And the garden that my grandma loved behind the house as well as in the front, overlooking the Ocean.

Smell seems to be the most common transporter through time. Smells can be associated with people, places or events and without any warning or expectation, you can be travelling through time, recalling an event of the past. It doesn’t happen as often with sights or sounds, I’ve noticed.

It did make me wonder, why now? I have smelled this scent numerous times. Yet, it was in that moment, that the recollection was so strong.

I miss them, it feels like it has been too long since I last saw my grandparents. Both of my boys did not get to meet my mom’s parents, who lived in this house.

My grandpa, we were told, when he was younger, had a streak in his hair of blonde- white at the crown of his head, going down the back. My younger sister inherited this blonde- white streak, in the same place. The puppy that my family got last year, also has a strip of white fur at his crown. It is a little strip of fur I have regarded affectionately on Calvin, thinking of grandpa. I do think of them both often, but this little strip of fur on Calvin’s head has made me think more frequently of them, which I think could be the reason why the scent of a tube of toothpaste transported me back to their home. That, and it’s summer. I always feel the need to be out in front of their old house, on the beach, at some point during the summer months.

Sending Love,

Devon