In remembrance of things past

I was recently asked by the Wānaka Business Chamber to give a talk at one of their coffee mornings. A natural speaker I am not and although I agreed willingly, I was gripped by the kind of nerves that the prospect of the written word never presents to me. Apart from the obvious trepidation surrounding the very fact of standing up in front of a room full of people, there was the fact that that I would be my own subject matter, something that did not sit remotely comfortably. To frame things in a way that would be, hopefully, more interesting to the audience and easier for me, I pieced my talk, a tale of my life to date, around music; the title: Words, Wine and Whatifs: A Life in Lyrics and Lessons.

The songs weren’t necessarily my desert island discs but they were ones that, for whatever reason, were relevant to the chapter of my life in question, sometimes more for the lyrics themselves than for them having been the soundtrack to that period. And yes, my professional career, in the words of Mr Brightside, really did start off with a kiss, but that’s another story…

Regardless of musical preference, we’ve all had that time, I’m sure, when an overheard song or piece of music stops  you in your tracks and immediately casts you back to another time, another place, and it can wind you, leave you breathless. You might be in the supermarket buying face wash for your teenager but you’re suddenly fourteen again, wondering which of your five plaid shirts you should wear that day as you reach for your Doc Martens. You’re driving with your window down and the strains of something coming from your neighbour’s vehicle takes you back to that day in your twenties that you’d not thought about for years, the date you’d been longing for for months that, once it finally eventuated, was nothing short of a damp squib whose only longevity was in the retelling with your friends.

As with music, so too with smells. Even now, three decades later, I can’t help myself at an airport Duty Free. If there’s a sample bottle of CK One, chances are I’ll be dousing myself in it to the same level that I did with the tester in Boots, circa 1997. As the smell hits me for the first time, I’ll be back on the high street with two best friends having just bought the single of the latest Levi’s commercial soundtrack. Every single time. Every single airport.

Then there’s chicken stock, a panacea for almost anything. Coming home from school, then later from university, there was something so incredibly comforting, so familiar about the smell of chicken stock that would hit me as I opened the front door. I’m sure my memory is convincing me that it was a far more constant smell than it actually was but when I think back to the house in which I grew up, I can smell Dad’s chicken stock just as clearly as I can hear the clunk of the front door as it yielded to the final key turn or see the scratch on my bedhead that marked where I had put a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles transfer, later taken off. When my children are ill, I give them chicken stock; when I am fraught, when I am in nesting mode, I make chicken stock. In action it connects me to my father and in smell, it is a thread that weaves throughout the decades, no matter where they find me.

AI may deceive us with sights and sounds on the screen and it may ultimately cost me my job. What it cannot do (yet? Who knows? I hope not!) is evoke the visceral, step-stopping, eye-closing moments that sensory memories can elicit. For that, I am truly thankful and for these moments, I remove myself from the screens of work, diversion and distraction and put on a record, step outdoors, open up my ears and breathe deep and see where it takes me…