Music, Tastes, Scents, Touch take you back in Time
I heard Tangerine Dream on Soundscapes today and was immediately taken back to 1987, when a group of women artists and I rented a beach house on the shores of Lake Michigan for 3 days during Summer Solstice. We walked the beach, tuned out, tuned in, and created Art! What a total, complete in every detail, memory filled my senses just from that one song. Amazing stuff our senses.
Orange soda sails me to my uncle’s cottage on the lake when I was a kid. It’s like a mini vacation. One taste and I’m relaxing without a care in the world, back to summer vacations in Michigan, with gentle breezes, pine trees, and potato chips. I could almost smell the gasoline from the outboard motor.
The savory aroma of mushroom soup carries me back to my Grandmother’s kitchen. She owned a restaurant for many years, and homemade mushroom soup was a staple. Now if I just had some oyster crackers.
It’s been estimated that the average person can distinguish 10,000 different scents. This past year, researchers from Rockefeller University, tried to come up with a more realistic number. Conjuring up various aroma cocktails from 128 distinct odor molecules in multiple combinations for volunteers to sniff, the participants completely astounded the scientists with their innate ability to differentiate even subtle changes. It’s now estimated we can detect at least 1 trillion various smells, and possibly even more. Each triggers a part of our brain that holds past images filled with details, like a dream. So to remember this day, this moment in time, fill your senses to the brim. Smell the expresso, taste the croissant, hear the music, and immerse yourself deeply in the senses of your life.
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