In The Air Tonight

As I left my apartment tonight and stepped out into the hall, I was hit with such a strong, sweet, intoxicating smell, and in a flash I was back to the summer of 1982, spending every minute I had with the first woman I ever loved. I was back in my dorm room in the fall of 1982, and could smell the student union and then the hallway along the row of mailboxes, and then the letter, or card, or not inside seemingly soaked in her perfume. I instantly felt that same feeling, warmth, happiness, anticipation of what she had to say. I could see her eyes the first time I ever met her.

It is amazing to me, and wonderful, just how much a certain smell, or sound, or song, which is technically a sound, or a look out over the horizon can remind us of so much and bring to us such strong memories, some good, some bad, and some simply amazing.

To this day, if I hear American Pie by Don McLean, Imagine by John Lennon, Maggie May by Rod Stewart, I am instantly seven years old, in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, one town up route 1A from Narragansett, in this somewhat rundown old wood structure that was officially called the Saunderstown Yacht Club. The Yacht Club was much more like an oversized clubhouse for a bunch of seven, eight, and nine year olds than it was a Yacht Club. For one thing there were no yachts, just sail boats and mostly small and old sail boats at that. This was a place where kids ran around in swim trunks all day and rinsed off boats and sails, stored gear, prepared gear, rigged out the “yachts,” Sunfish, Sail Fish, Moby’s, and if you were lucky that day the Lasers.

For me this was a place to be me, small, wiry, scrappy little kid that would do anything that needed to be done, anything that kept me there, where I enjoyed being more than anywhere else, where I got to be on the water, having fun, and in charge of where I went, what I did, and with whom I enjoyed that time. The friends I had were good kids that liked all the same things as me, salt water, fresh air, and wind.

When I get to go back to Chicago, which I am doing again soon, or New York, or Boston, two weeks after Chicago, that is all about the sounds, so many sounds, but to me they are all just one big sound of the excitement of these amazing cities. It is also about the sight of the glow over the city as you begin to get near, or maybe not even so near, for Boston the glow is no less than twenty five miles away, for New York it is a long way off, and for Chicago, since I have only ever flown into the City at night, it is the sight of the entire city lit up as you fly just north of the city in from off lake Michigan, and if you are really lucky there will be a night game at Wrigley which you can see clearly from the air if you know where to look.

For some reason anytime I hear the sound of city buses I think of Chicago. Whenever I hear sirens I almost always think of New York, I dare you to try and walk two blocks in New York City without hearing a siren of some kind. When I smell Kettle Corn it is Chicago again, Kettle Corn on almost every corner downtown. When I go downstairs to a friend’s restaurant and hear him speaking Italian to his mother on the phone with the smell of the “gravy,” pasta sauce, in the background I am always reminded of the Hannover Street in the North End in Boston where almost all you hear is Italian, and there is amazing food everywhere.

The power of specific sounds and smells, songs and foods, the way the light hits, the way the sunrise or sunset burns, always transforms me to places, people, times, moments in a way that is magical. Maybe time travel is possible, if we allow it to be.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.