Nostalgia...

In the strangest places.

Isn't it interesting how certain smells or tastes make us think of things from our past? I've always been fascinated with the memories that get stored away. In all honesty, I am TERRIBLE with remembering things. I don't mean studying or remembering what's going on next week or last week. But, I am really BAD at remembering things that happened years ago. My mom and dad tell great stories of things when they were younger - growing up in a home heated by actual coal and the cold mornings when the coal had died out. They remember jumping out from under the covers and getting dressed on top of the heating grate so that they didn't have to stand out in the cold too long. I can barely remember things that happened in college! I'm not sure why my memory is like this, but I think it's unfortunate for me. Then there are things that are so unbelievably clear to me that I can not get them out of my head, even if I try.

Anywho...back to the issue of nostalgia...and smells.

One smell that I will NEVER forget is the smell of chlorine. Having been a swimmer since the age of 6, that smell is one that I love and loathe simultaneously...but mostly love. The other day, I arrived at the Manayunk Diner for a morning ride. I was early, so I went over to the diner to use the restroom (and buy a bagel, since I always feel weird using the bathroom and the parking lot without buying something!). Anyway...I open the door to the bathroom (which, by the way, is the CLEANEST facility I have EVER used in public) and I am struck by memory. Mainly because the bathroom smells like a swimming pool. Not the smell that you get when your on deck or sitting in the bleachers of the pool, but the smell that wafts down the hallways of the school letting you know that somewhere behind those concrete walls is a watery, 25 yard haven. Somewhere around the corner or down a stairwell, the cool water of a competition pool awaits that first dive that disrupts the silence of the surface. I was always amazed that I could smell a pool even outside...just knowing that it was inside those doors. Amazed that the perfume of chemicals could penetrate even cinderblock...no wonder it hangs on your skin and hair and clothing.

Imagine...all that by walking into a bathroom....in a diner...in Manayunk.