Perfumes of the Past is the name of a store in Haarlem, the Netherlands. The store's contents are self explanatory. I wish I could have stepped through its doors, but it was always closed. I wonder if they kept records of all the memories tied to each bottle and each scent.
I sometimes say that I remember everything, except for the things I don’t. On the one hand there are those memories that are so ingrained in our minds that we refer to them constantly, consciously or subconsciously, and we can easily recount them when needed. I can, for example, remember the trip I took to India last summer. I recall the names of the places I visited and the hard-edged, geometric sunburns I had around my arms and neck a week later. On the other hand there are memories, or perhaps it is more accurate to describe them as details within memories, that I do not remember, yet when pieced together they trigger long submerged recollections to be summoned from the depths.
This memory recall requires a little bit of effort, but is most often achieved serendipitously. I cannot count the times that I have been stopped in my tracks by a passerby’s perfume, transporting me thousands of miles inside my mind to my grandmother’s house. A light bulb goes off, a film reel is fed through my internal projector, and I can see her. A snap, a crackle, a pop, and she’s making me breakfast. John Denver sings “Annie’s Song” on the old stereo. Anne is my mother’s name. She asks if I want any salt on my eggs. I say no thank you because as she gets older she’s losing her taste buds and always adds way too much. She sets the plate down on the table with a thunk. I take a bite of the toast, make a face, and remember that I forgot she puts on way too much butter as well. She goes into the other room and sprays mists of perfume onto her wrists and behind her ears as I put two new slices of bread into the toaster. Poison. That’s the name of the perfume she wears, Poison by Christian Dior. It comes in little love potion–shaped bottles that are very sinister looking. I think they’re beautiful, and their contents wonderful.
Our memories are imperfect, and no matter how hard we try we will never be able to consciously remember every minute detail. In fact, I myself find wonder in the awesome ability of the mind to retrieve memory in the most unexpected of circumstances. If we can use five senses to experience the world around us, why would we confine our experiences of wonder to one? A visual experience of wonder is the complete disregard of the spectrum and simultaneity of our senses, especially when you factor in the experiences of those who are blind or visually impaired. When compared to smell and sound, the instantaneous visual experience is considered less potent in provoking emotional responses. If you can’t see a rainbow does that mean you can’t experience wonder?
Just as the scent of perfume on a stranger acts as a teleportation device, so can sound. Some of my most wonder-full memories of experiencing art, in fact, don’t involve me seeing but hearing. A few years ago, on a trip to Brazil, I had a chance to “see” Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s The Murder of Crows (2008). I walk into an old warehouse in the middle of a dense forest. There’s nothing special about this structure—except for the fact that it seems to be talking. It takes a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust. I’m confused. It’s completely silent. Wasn’t the warehouse speaking to me a moment earlier? In the middle of this large warehouse are a few rows of metal foldout chairs, sporadically occupied by people who are sitting completely still, encircled by large standing speakers. I walk up to them and sit down. Later on I would question the decision to include myself in this very awkward social interaction, but I couldn’t find an answer then because that’s when I hear the door creak open. I look over, and there’s no one there. I glance at the woman to my right and her eyes are shut. I think oh-why-not and do the same. And then I’m not there anymore. In the next half hour, I have my first experience of a fully conscious, and yes, wonderful, dream. I didn’t use my eyes once, although I did use my brain’s built-in projector. You know, the same one I use when I smell my grandmother’s perfume, when she makes me breakfast.
That was my first time “seeing” work by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Having “seen” a couple more since, I always remember them with my eyes closed. My memories of their work can be very visual, but none of the images I see relate to how the setting of their installations look — they all involve mental images that I created myself as a response to what I was hearing. The memories bring back that sense of hair-raising wonder I felt in a humid warehouse in Brazil. Our experiences of wonder come at moments that stand out, that can be distinguished from time preceding and proceeding it. Yet this discrete moment is one that can be experienced again — with equal wonder — at another time, without a complete and instantaneous visual. In a sense, your memory acts as a sixth sense, one that encompasses all other senses, amalgamates them in that one moment of time, and sets up trip wires for you to step on sometime in the future. An experience of wonder can be repeated, you just need to fall into the right trap. A wonderful trap.
It only seems fitting for me to end with some words from John Denver, who has been patiently singing Annie’s Song on repeat while I write:
You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
As visual as John’s descriptions are, I can’t help but close my eyes.