Smelling the Roses

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” -Helen Keller

It’s funny how certain smells bring back memories. Not long ago, I took a trip back home. As I was walking into my childhood church again, the aroma of a certain pesky weed reached my nose. That smell brought back a memory from my childhood.

I was probably only six or seven years old when my Dad told me that he would hire me to do a job. He told me to go out to our gravel driveway and pull weeds. For every weed I picked he would give me a penny. I was so excited. I thought I’d hit the jackpot and would be rich in no time. I ran out and started pulling weeds as fast as I could. After pulling about twenty or so, I realized it wasn’t the dream job I thought it was going to be. I had only become 20 cents richer and was starting to get tired. I even felt a little ripped off. Some of the weeds took quite the effort to pull up. I hadn’t thought about this memory for years until the smell a few months ago brought it flooding back.


The smell of gasoline reminds me of boating in the summer with my family. The smell of rubbing alcohol reminds me of my many childhood trips to the hospital. The smell of fresh tar on the road reminds me of riding bikes around town with my childhood best friend. Each of the perfumes of my past have a season of life memory themselves. Then there is the smell of wood burning reminds me of the heating systems used in the villages in Romania. The smell of a city dump reminds me of the precious children I love who live in the trash in Kenya.

I guess our life story could be told in the form of a timeline of smells. Out of all of them, the two I like the best is my husband’s cologne (whichever one he is wearing at the time) and the smell of our house after a long trip away. They both bring me comfort and serenity.

I think sense of smell is a gift. It helps us remember things we would have long forgotten at times. It brings us comfort and reminds us of seasons gone by. In Proverbs, we are told to take time to smell the roses. This piece of wisdom means to go through life slow enough you savor each moment and enjoy what is going on around you.

The moon was so beautiful the other night. We saw it on a drive home, and I realized how many times we shuffle by such beautiful scenes and don’t even notice them. No, it didn’t have a scent that will trigger my memory of it years from now. It did give me a peaceful feeling though. For a minute, I stopped and smelled the roses in that moment and was left with the sweetness of the moment and a grateful heart.