what my nose knows

People who suffer from something called "migraine with aura" often experience a perceptual disturbance and auditory and olfactory hallucinations among many other things just before the onset of a migraine.

I am one of those people.

The visual effects can sometimes be quite stunning, terrifying or crippling. I've experienced blurred, tunnel, peppered, kaleidoscope, double and monocular vision. Thankfully not all at once.

Most of the auditory hallucinations in my case just give me the sense that all background noise is equivalent to a roomful of hungry, tired and soggy diapered toddlers jacked up soda pop and candy or the sound of radio static blasting through a megaphone.

The olfactory hallucinations can be a lot more fun, although I'm sometimes sure I smell the hot, dry aluminum of a cafeteria steam table that has evaporated all of its water, I often smell vanilla pudding, brownies or jasmine.

Even when I'm not about to experience a migraine, I have a constantly hyper-alert olfactory sense, fantastic when I'm in the vicinity of a bakery and nauseating when I'm near a urine soaked dumpster alley. Of course that would be gross for you, too, but it appears that my schnoz is even more sensitive to it than the average sniffer. I once cooked in a restaurant where I got to know the regulars by smell and from my perch in the kitchen I could start cooking their dinner even before the hostess had seated them.

Much of the time throughout my days can be marked by smell as much as by activity. Daily arrival at work for me smells like this: hot dumpster, cigarette smoke, full grease trap, stale beer, mildewy mops, slimy grey disintegrating dish pit floor mat, old fish. That's before I even clock in.
So it's no surprise that much of my ADD is also triggered by smell. No doubt I'm still distracted by chipmunks, lizards and shiny objects, but I'll be going about my day when a smell like fake apricot or wet mittens will wriggle its way into my nostrils and suddenly I'm 6 years old and I can't remember for the life of me what table 8 just ordered.

Apricot & Strawberry

Tonight I got a whiff of my childhood.

From an unknown source, I could smell Apricot.
Not the fruit, but the tiny rubber figurine of Strawberry Shortcake's friend, Apricot, who was one in a series of the little dolls who smelled like their name.

Apricot is holding hands with a bunny, to the right of Lemon Meringue and to the left of Apple Dumplin' on her pet turtle.

As much as I was dying to collect them all, Apricot was the only one I ever owned and had I not gotten rid of her, (during my all-grown-up teen angst years,) I would take her out right now and give her a sniff. Strawberry Shortcake was popular (the first time around) with many little American girls born in the 1970s who almost all share the middle name Lynn. But, she was even more special to me because she was the only popular kid icon that my strict and pious Mennonite-wanna-be mother approved of.

I was absolutely head over heels for Miss Shortcake. The year I discovered her, my favorite color changed from purple to red.

I had the Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag;

I had the lunch box.

I clearly remember getting the three pack of "Weekend" underwear with Strawberry posed on pink, yellow and peach for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I immediately put a pair on in the car, in the parking lot of the department store even though it wasn't the weekend.

For my 7th birthday I got a cake with her sweetly smiling icing face and I also received a personally autographed plastic image of her with her cat "Custard" that said, "To my berry special friend, Tracey." I still have it. And it was berry special to me because my name was properly spelled with an "E" which was a rare find on the monogrammed items that were all the rage in the 1980s. And I still have a pot holder shaped like a strawberry house with her looking out the window, tending her strawberry window boxes. And I still to this day keep all my hair elastics and barrettes in a canister on which she is depicted gleefully lounging in a juicy pile of bright red berries. One little whiff and a landslide of memories.

Thanks, Strawberry, for your optimism and cheer, you got me through some pretty tough childhood times.