The smell of old books bring back lingering thoughts of my childhood. It wasn’t the sweetest smell. It wasn’t even the strongest smell. It was a faint smell, yet if I close my mind, even for a second and think back, I’m there in an instant.
They say the sense of smell is the strongest sensory connected to memory. That must be true, because just as I think, even for a moment, so many thoughts cross my vacant mind.
Suddenly, memories of libraries and discount books stores race through my mind. Late afternoons, when school was out, I found myself spending hours in the library. I remember the small library in my hometown. I would enter through the thick oak doors, thinking that every book in the world must be found on these very shelves. And all I could think is that I wanted to read every single one of them.
I never quite stayed in one section. I’d meander through the isles filled to the rim with books, going from the children’s section to the adult section. My hand touching every book in the shelf, until, finally, I found the one worth taking home.
I’d lay there at night, with the book tucked under my pillow, waiting for me to read it. It was bedtime, and I became a pro at pretending to be asleep. My mother would creak the door open just to make sure I had fallen asleep. I lay there with my eyes almost completely closed, until she closed the door.
When she left and house was still and the sirens of the streets ceased, I’d slip my small delicate hands under the pillow and grab ahold of the thick warm pages.
Yet my memory doesn’t trace back to touch. Rather, the faint yet pungent smells of those warm pages are what my mind often falls in love with. Each book smelled so different, yet all of them shared one common scent. They smelled old.
Curled up in my wool blanket, I held my tiny flashlight in my mouth as I quickly found the page I’d last read. A small leaf bookmark hinted just past the edge of the slick page. I flipped the book open, sat up with my back against the headboard, and lean in to the book.
Traces of oak and pine caressed my small button nose. I think back to all the people that had carried this book before me. What smells had they left? Did they too smell the oak and pine? I read a few pages and drifted off. The book lay across my chest in deep sleep as I dreamt of the next book I’d take home.
