I think I am three, and what I remember most is the smell. Today, I can walk into a fabric store, breathe deeply into the bolts of cloth, and I'm there again.
It's a bright day but I don't remember if it is spring or fall. I want to believe it is spring. The sky is pure blue, the grass is green as can be, and the shed is weathered and ramshackle. He is an old, old man wearing blue denim overalls, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a hat. He has the same blue eyes as my grandmother; that I notice right away.
Granny goes into the shed, and Mom and I follow. I don't remember what they did because I was transfixed by all the cloth, and the thread, and so much color, everywhere. I feel fully immersed in a sea of colors and shades and hues ... and I smell that cloth and the grass and even the livestock in nearby fields. I know that we are somewhere near Porter's Chapel, which is this place where Mama sometimes takes Granny and Aunt Ruth on occasion. I know that when we see the little station with a Bay sign, it isn't too far to Porter's Chapel.
It's almost overwhelming but not in the way that makes me sick. Sometimes when I ride with Mama and Granny out this way, I see so much and we go around so many curves ...... I get so excited that it makes me feel sick and I have to lay down to stop it from happening. I don't think it will today. I hope not. This is so pretty. The cloth smells old and strange but it smells good too. I can't explain why I like it. But it's really fun to be here.
I hear Mama talking to the old man in overalls and I think she calls him a name: Nathaniel. He smiles but I don't think I see any teeth. He's got wrinkles galore and those blue eyes like Granny, that's for sure. We leave after Granny got what she needed. I can't remember if we went to Porter's Chapel afterwards or straight home.
Many years later, I wondered if it had all been just a very vivid dream. But I couldn't explain how that smell always took me to the same place -- the blue sky, the shed, the cloth -- every single time. So I asked my mom if it was real. If Nathaniel was a real person or a figment of my imagination. Did I only think I'd been there, maybe overhearing Granny telling someone about the place and having integrated it as one of my own memories?
She confirmed that it was indeed a real place, a real person, a real event, and that I must have gone with them once or twice. I instantly feel better knowing this wasn't just something I dreamed.
It is the start of my personal memories, the moment when I had experiences that weren't just repeated to me through someone else's filter. It is a small memory but so important. And I'm not sure why it was the sense of smell, especially of bolts of cloth stacked in an old wood shed, that triggered it all and still does to this day, some forty-plus years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment