I belong to a local writing group.  Eight women gather every two weeks; drink tea and share our stories, poems and letters put to paper.  Here is what I wrote for this week’s meeting

I keep our old family photographs in a shoe box. They are all mixed together, a random sampling of our lives. I love to sit with this treasure box on my lap and time travel.

There are hundreds of baby photos. I marvel at their bright sweet faces and smooth chubby cheeks. There are pictures taken of Matthew’s red belt ceremony and Sarah modeling her Brownie uniform. Some capture a wonderful family camping trip to Grundy Provincial Park.  It makes me smile just to look at us sitting around in lawn chairs munching on red licorice. There are lots of garden pictures and tons taken over the years at our cottage. We have countless birthday parties, weddings, Christmas, Christmas, Halloween and more Christmas.

“Remember the summer that my garden looked that fantastic?”

“That dress – I use to love that  dress”

“Oh my god” “Look at my hair in this one.”

“Here’s one of Grampa with Tammy the cat on his lap.”                                               “Everyone use to wear stretchy ski pants, mohair sweaters and hair bands.”

We have hundreds of happy loving memories in a box

At some point I must have stored my albums in the basement. The oldest photos now smell musty. I always have to wash my hands after the shoe box is packed away

Imagine if there was a place you could take old photos and have them cleaned and then for a slight extra charge they could add in a custom scent. We could call the process “Aromamatic Kodachrome”   It would be a scratch and sniff of your life.

Photos of birthday parties would now release whiffs of chocolate cake and wax candles

Photos of kids building sand castles would remind us of Noxzema skin cream

Camping trips would offer up a scent of cedar boughs, bug repellent, burning logs, and Pine-Sol

Here’s Grampa again…… memories of tobacco and Old Spice

A picture taken at that dorm party Gary and I went to: incense, beer and pizza

Nanny all dressed up: Evening in Paris perfume

Sarah at camp: horses

Matthew as a baby: ivory soap

Christmas turkey, Christmas turkey, cloves, fireplace, pine trees ………

“What? ….   Why’s that one still musty?”  ” Oh, its inside the tent at Grundy Park”