Today I went to visit a friend and had a lovely morning playing with dogs, that was until Artemis and Humboldt decided to chase the cockerel - we all left chastened by the behaviour. I hope the cockerel is not too traumatised, the two puppies barely batted an eye lid when they were told off and are now out playing on the lawn here at home.
Coming home I stopped the car and just looked at this view for several minutes. It reminded me to look at the bigger picture (I live on the right hand slope of the mountain in the centre in the far distance). We get so caught up in the minute details of our every day lives that sometimes we forget to refocus and look outside the box we live in. We have the ability to pan in and out though we often get so caught up and wrapped up in our own importance that it takes a major shock to jolt us out of that habit pattern behaviour. A few weeks ago I left the last job that linked me to the horse racing world, it was a habit, it was cosy (in a fashion) but for me it was not healthy to be involved any longer. I have been twiddling with the view finder on my life looking to bring the new into focus - but I am not sure what I am looking for, I am scanning the environment looking for that point that triggers my interest before I focus in on it. Sometimes though what we are meant to see is not always visible from where we are standing (see Perspective) or we are relying on other parties to remove the invisibility cloak. So here I am / was sitting on the hill, looking over the panorama spread out in front of me looking for the route that I am going to venture out on. I know what / where I would like to head but not sure if that is in the Divine plan or other peoples' plans for me. Picture was taken from the boarder between Tipperary and Waterford looking north east The power of a smell: the memories that can be dredged up, the emotions that can be stirred all by a smell.
Some friends came over on Sunday night and very kindly brought me roses, the smell in the house at the moment is divine. Out riding this morning the smell of elderflowers and honeysuckle on the damp warm breeze, suddenly I was back at school with the smell of beeswax in the library, the doors open and the smell of honeysuckle drifting through the windows while studying for my final secondary school exams; next thing I am transported to the fields at home when I was a child and the sweet smell of the elderflowers all creamy fluffy and lacy. All of a sudden that trigger of beeswax, which I had not smelt but was a smell association, has taken me from a really happy relaxed childhood memory to one of fear and trepidation of my first night at boarding school when I was eight years old. Then Wham! Philadelphus wafts through the air and I am back at my childhood home again. That sense of smell is so powerful with so many associations that for no apparent reason at all our emotions can end up being tossed like a dingy in a sudden squall. Every day there are thousands of triggers and not all of them cause a reaction that we are aware of consciously but the body may have subtle reactions that we are not aware of at the time. It is only later maybe hours or days later that the 'symptom' materialises but our association of the smell that triggered is long forgotten. Sometimes we have words that trigger an association with smells - this morning I had the radio on in the kitchen while I was pottering about; Eritrea was mentioned and the border war there at the end of the 1990s. I was in Eritrea working in 1997 for some reason I could suddenly smell the dust and the heat, next came the cardamon tea and a memory of a small boy aged somewhere between 6-8 who wanted to study, he was living with his grandmother at the time. I think my boss bought him some copy books and pencils as well as a basket of fruit. Now twenty years later (well it will be in July) I wonder what happened to that boy, is he in Eritrea, was he forced to immigrate or was he killed during the bombing of Asmara in 1998. We touch indirectly so many people in our lives and sometimes the power of a simple smell can take us off down rabbit holes that we never even thought of. |
Sacha Maxwell
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