Orange marmalade. The
background smell, if you would, of my high school years. This morning Greg got up and said, “I’d like
to make you Swedish pancakes.” Well, we
aren’t supposed to be eating things like pancakes as our diet prohibits it, but
Greg’s Swedish pancakes are something pretty spectacular. Thin, crepe-like confections that melt in
your mouth. Only he knows the recipe as
it is a “family” secret and I am not, he informs me, officially a blood
relative. Refusing these pancakes is like
being asked not to breathe; it’s just not going to happen. So I succumb once again to the temptation of
this breakfast delicacy and enjoy the clanging of pans and the smell of the
vanilla that emanates from the kitchen.
Soon Greg calls me to the table and there it is all laid
out: beautifully browned Swedish pancakes, syrup, bacon, confectioner’s sugar,
and a jar of orange marmalade. Well,
this is something new! Our choice of jam
is usually a rich raspberry concoction.
Today, though, a proud little jar of orange marmalade rests on my side
of the table, and I am immediately transported--transported to tumultuous days of
high school. Right next to my school, in the outskirts of
Los Angeles, sat the King Kelly Marmalade Company. All day long they made marmalade and the
smell of it wafted right into the windows of my Bible class, and my English
class, and it mixed with the smell of the formaldehyde that was used to
preserve the animals in my biology class.
You really couldn’t escape the smell—it was present at football games,
and track meets, and homecoming celebrations.
The smell of orange marmalade wafted down the hallways when
I fell in love with David Sybesma, the cutest boy in school. Our lockers were close to each other, and
every day after fifth hour, he would look my way as he slammed his locker shut,
and he would smile. And I felt my breath
catch in my throat and my heart beat a little faster, and I remember thinking
how wonderful it was to be in love, although, sadly, David never reciprocated
by overwhelming feelings of ardor.
I remember smelling
the marmalade the day my mom met me in the parking lot in front of the
school. She was there with Rosie, my big
sister. Rosie was so excited because she
and mom had somehow scraped together the money needed to buy me a beautiful
pink shawl to wear with my dress to the junior-senior prom. As tears filled my eyes at the realization of
what this extravagance had cost my mom, I could smell the citrus tang of the
marmalade.
The sense of smell is probably one of our most under-rated
and underappreciated senses. We don’t
ever think about what it might mean to us if we could no longer smell the
popcorn in the movies, or the smell of the ocean on a bright summer morning, or
the famous cinnamon rolls your mama makes.
My grandmother, ironically, never had a sense of smell, and I remember
my mother talking about the fear it instilled in her. My grandmother worried
about not being able to smell a burning casserole in the oven, or spilled
gasoline in the barn, or the myriad other smells that signal danger. I used to think that was silly-if we could
see, why did we need to smell? But truly, I have come to understand that many
of our fondest memories are triggered by a smell that brings us right back to a
moment that was meaningful to us. Like
the smell of marmalade and they way it wove its tantalizing aroma through every
moment of every day that I was in high school.
As I take a smell of the marmalade this morning, my mind races over the many
experiences I had when I was in high school--both joyful and devastating, but it quickly is distracted by
the smell of Swedish pancakes and the man in the kitchen who has turned out to
be so much more wonderful than David Sybesma could ever have been. And it is the smell of a simple pancake that
makes my heart content because it reminds me of how richly my life has been
blessed.
