I pour through beer!
To me, there are few sensory impulses that conjure up lost memories quite like that of the sense of smell. There are those occasions where I detect an odor, a scent, a perfume...something long lost in the confusion of the years, repressed and packed far away into the darkest, web-adorned recesses of my mind. When I see a picture, it reminds me. When I feel a certain touch or tickle, I've most likely felt it recently anyway, so the novelty is gone. When I taste a food, I've tasted something, again, that I've had recently, chiefly due to my obsessive-compulsive nature and my ratcheted routine of following a consistent (-ly bland) diet. When I hear a sound, a song...admittedly, those can take me back, too, but I routinely listen to the repetitive auditory fodder that I've kept spinning in the same, inevitable rotation since 1992.
To smell, though, something I haven't sensed in a long time...oh, Christ, that can take me back. When I walked into one of my comrade's rooms today, I instantly picked up a sweet, strong smell that grabbed me at my soul and jerked my being back to 1982, to a spring day in 2nd grade with Mrs. Smith at Lake Harbin Elementary. I suddenly was reminded of fresh crayons, construction paper, that crumbling paste that we so often tasted (if not devoured...hello, low test scores), and of the happy days of songs and play that so filled our little 7-year-old hearts with glee.
Those were good times, to be sure. To paraphrase Steinbeck, "no care then, I knew not sin. And we have not been happy since".
+++++++
I would be a complete pessimist if I agreed with that last statement. Life has been good, though not overly easy, but it has been rewarding and, so far, healthy. Honestly, it hasn't been that hard. I've plenty of sin, but I remain happy and will continue to be happy regardless of any transgressions of past, present, or future. We all learn much, and our education is never ending.
Thank God school does, though.
I'm no saint, but I'm no horrible sinner. What "sins" I've committed are relatively self-inflicted, not harming others. My scroll is relatively sparse with charged punishments, thank you very much. Thanks to Mrs. Steiner, too, I remain the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.
Memories.
I digressed a bit, but back to the subject of the olfactory. Since my grade school days and my era lacking sin (which was probably more brief than I'd like to admit), I've experienced a great deal and much of that experience has been quite nice, indeed. Of all the scents that my nostrils take in, there's one that always hits the spot, regardless of how much I may have worn that odor through my nasal passages:
Beer.
Yes, it sounds sick and depraved, and, perhaps, it is. To me, though, the hops and that crisp, alive smell just rips me back in time, to a time when things are good, great, wonderful...sublime and supreme.
Last week was rough. The kids were testing, and, as any school teacher can tell you, adjusted schedules outside of the daily grind makes the child go wild. The afternoons were bitter and my passion for the job dissipated rapidly throughout the week. By week's end, I was finding myself sipping out of a beer bottle in the afternoons. The late afternoon hours are wonderful for this...the sun is setting, the contrast of the light and shadows on the trees brings out the depth and texture of the landscape, the little creatures are scurrying about eating the vegetation on the ground and playing in the cooler hours of the late day. I grilled these afternoons, because the only thing that nearly rivals the scent of a beer is the wafting smell of searing meat. This can swipe me back to many a tailgate in Athens, a Greek festival as a kid, a south Georgia Jazz Festival, a pep rally pig roast in the middle of a country field.
Beer, though, invokes the spirit of the muse of utter bliss. I don't know if there's a muse for that, maybe a god or a cherub, but there's someone watching over that one, and everyone loves it when this guy pays us a visit. I took a good, deep drag off of the bottle and let my lips pop off the end of the bottle like a suction cup releasing from a window. The scent drifted up, and my head grew light, my body rose and travelled northeast to Athens and plopped me right down in a chair outside of Rocky's Pizza during another late afternoon, a Saturday, during the Twilight Criterium. Being surrounded by people, by friends, by music and beer, all during daylight hours...drinking wasn't being done in the shameful and hidden corners of bars. This was out in the open, celebrated. Beer was great. The day and time were better.
Another time I often drift back to was the free outdoor concert that Widespread Panic held in the late 90's. Another comes only with Corona, putting me on a beach during Spring Break, not drunk or stoned or womanizing, just sitting there drinking a beer as the skies turned red and the sun went down. Someone was playing a guitar, someone smoking a cigarette, someone was laughing and we were all pink as slamon with cheeks of bright red and hair bleached blonde by the coastal sun. We were out of our trunks and into khakis, t-shirts and light cotton shirts. Nothing could be better in the world, no matter how fantastic you may have described it to all of us. You couldn't beat it.
I drink Guinness I think of my friend Marc, I drink Michelob Ultra and I think of my friend Keith. I drink scotch (not beer, but you get the idea) I think of Vegas. I drink a wine cooler I think about the Redcoat Band and Jacksonville, Florida (who knew Jacksonville would've been considered a good place?). If I drink a good import, I generally think of New York or Alexandria, Virginia and watching the Kentucky Derby at an Irish Pub that had a little corner for Ronald Reagan reserved.
It's not the taste, though...it's always the smell. Somehow, the taste doesn't matter all that much, but the bouquet makes it complete. The drink will lighten your head, but the scent will lighten your soul.
Next time you have a beer, try it for yourself. Take a drink, then take a whiff. If you don't go back to something good, you just haven't been living.
No comments:
Post a Comment