Though I am far from an expert on such things it’s my belief déjà vu is deeply related to our sense of smell. Smells are, at least in their subtlety, things we often pass over, ignore, set aside. What if, however, those smells are recorded in our brains and when those smells return, still unnoticed, we get that vague, “Seems like I’ve been here,” or “through this before”? That, seems to me, fits the data.
Stronger smells often produce not a vague sense of a past experience but a strong sense of past experience. If, for instance, you have little experience with barnyard substance, smelling it likely brings you right back to the first time. I cannot get a good whiff of bologna without being transported to grade school. Bologna, white bread, yellow mustard, having spent the better part of four hours in a metal lunch box with a tiny bag of fritos and a foil wrapped ho-ho sent forth a cornucopia of odors not soon forgotten. Then there were the smells wafting out of my classmates’ boxes. These take me back to the relative innocence of grade school, to kickball games, festivals and smoke drifting from chimneys.
Autumn is a season of smells- the slow decomposition of the leaves, a mug of apple cider, a steaming pot of venison stew. It is a season of falling eye candy, shimmering golds and reds. It is a season of highs and lows, Indian Summer coming out for its last hurrah and frost on the pumpkins. It is a season of sounds, geese honking on their southbound skyways and crackling bonfires. It is, ironically, finally cold enough to go outside, and when we do, we feel like we’re inside. The great outdoors becomes our great hibernation burrow, as the rising red on our ears serves as a reverse thermometer, letting us know when it’s time to move our inside inside.
I told our sons the other day the counsel I now give you- take it in. Take it all in. Keep eyes, ears, nose wide open. Like the squirrels scurrying around our back yard, hide away those sense memories. They will bring you back to your youth when you reach the very autumn of your lives. Let me also add this- do not be afraid of the nostalgia that comes with this time of year. Just remember to long for our true and first home and our true and final home, the garden city of the new Jerusalem.
You describe things so well…God has given us so many blessings in the use of our senses. Maybe one day, in the New Jerusalem, we’ll have a better appreciation for these things.