ku # 456 ~ punctum - I can smell the jeep
Wednesday, February 7, 2007 at 10:56AM 
Graveyard • click on photo to embiggen itWhen I stayed for over-night visits at my grandparent's house (Mark Hobson - The Early Years, 3-8), my long-gone great uncle James, who lived with my grandparents, use to take me along on walks with his dog, a german shephard, in the big cemetery which was just across the street, up a small embankment and across the railroad tracks from the house (Syracuse, NY). The most memorable highlight of the walks was trying to find the gravestone which was a full-sized effigy of a reclining german shephard.
This photograph is not of that cemetery. It is of the one and only cemetery in my little village of Au Sable Forks. There is no reclining german shephard gravestone and, when I created the photograph, there were no conscious memories of walks with great uncle James.
When viewing the photograph, the memories have come rushing back - great uncle James, his dog, the walks in the cemetery, the german shephard gravestone, the window light in my grandparent's bathroom, and great uncle James' broken down jeep. When I visited their house I think spent more time "drivng" that broken down jeep than I spent with my grandparents and great uncle James.
Of course, the jeep never actually left its final resting place there in the driveway, but, man, the adventures I had and the places I went on my "drives"... I couldn't begin to remember any of those "trips", but now, 55 years later (give or take a few years), the smell of that jeep interior is as vivid as that of this morning's coffee.
Are you ever surprised by an unexpected punctum when you view one of your own photographs?
Featured Comment: Billie Mercer wrote: "Strange how images can help us remember smells. I have one of Linda Butler's images from her Shaker series. It is of knit gloves and when I look at that image I remember my Mother's hands buttoning the back of my dress and tying my sash but most of all I remember the smell of hands. Strange because I can't remember my Mother ever wearing a pair of knit gloves."
Reader Comments (3)
Strange how images can help us remember smells. I have one of Linda Butler's images from her Shaker series. It is of knit gloves and when I look at that image I remember my Mother's hands buttoning the back of my dress and tying my sash but most of all I remember the smell of hands. Strange because I can't remember my Mother ever wearing a pair of knit gloves.
Smell is usually a source of memory, far more powerful than image. Yet here an image invokes smell -- the mind is such a trickster!
Whenever I look at photos of my daughters as babies I swear I smell baby shampoo and vomit. And I'm not being funny here!! Images of my grandmother induce fried chicken scent. Powerful punctums both....