How one breath carried me back to my grandmother’s sofa
It was my third day on the job.
Three years ago, I was working for a company that imported rare and unusual perfumes from all over Europe. I was new, and I was trying hard to make a good impression and find my footing. A work one morning, everyone gathered around a table for a tradition they had. We would experience each fragrance by passing it around the group. One by one, each person would share what they thought it was made of, which essences they could pick out, what it reminded them of, and how it made them feel.
When a bottle finally reached me, I closed my eyes and lifted it gently to my nose. I took a slow breath in, ready to name the oils and aromas.
Instead, I was gone.
In an instant, I was somewhere else, in another time. A whole life experience came back to me at once. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was crying. I hadn’t felt it start. The room had gone quiet, and every eye was on me. I was so disoriented that I just sat there, with no idea what to say or do.
The owner of the company broke the silence. “Kelly,” she said, “what just happened?”
When I found my bearings, I told them.
I was lying on my Grandma Kraus’s davenport, which is what she called a sofa. It was where I always lay after lunch at her house. I would read a book, and then I would nap. My grandmother always had my favorite pillow waiting for me. It was made from an old, soft cotton feed bag, printed with red and pink flowers and chickens. It smelled like hay. My grandparents were farmers who grew hay and sold it along the roadside.
After I would finish a book, she would lean down and whisper softly in my ear, “Would you like me to rub your back?”
I never said no.
Lying there on my favorite pillow, wrapped in the smell of hay, with my grandmother rubbing my back, I felt safe. There was no place in the world I would rather have been.
With one breath of that perfume, I was back on Grandma’s davenport.
That was why I was crying.
I think about that morning often. I wasn’t looking for a memory. It found me, with a smell, a pillow, and a whisper I hadn’t heard in years.
Our stories live in places we don’t expect. A scent. A song. The weight of a certain blanket. And they are fragile. If I hadn’t been handed that bottle, I might never have gone back to that davenport.
That is why I believe in writing them down. Not just the big milestones, but the pillow, the whisper, the afternoon light. Those are the stories that make us who we are.
Try this: What smell takes you home? Close your eyes, breathe in, and write down the first memory that arrives. Don’t edit it. Just let it be true.