estrella publishing.
From Your Neighbors, For Your Neighbors

From Me To You . . .  December 2025

I accidentally sniffed a stranger’s hair at the grocery store last week and my body just... lunged forward like some kind of scent-seeking missile. Before you start judging me, let me explain: she was wearing vanilla-scented perfume, and suddenly I was sixteen again, trailing behind Madame Lambert in the corridors of my high school. Half our class used to follow her around because she smelled exactly like warm cookies. 

​

Sound familiar? Our noses are basically time machines attached to our faces, and science backs me up on this. The olfactory system connects directly to the brain’s limbic region, which handles memory and emotion. It’s why a whiff of sunscreen can transport you to childhood holidays at the beach, or why Christmas cookies makes you feel warm and fuzzy before you even taste them. For me, the smell of freshly cut grass takes me straight back to walking home from school in England, dodging puddles in my too-small wellies. Fresh bagels? That’s my twenties in New York, grabbing breakfast before catching the subway. But creosote after an Arizona monsoon? That’s watching my own kids discover rain in the desert for the first time, their faces lit up like they’d never seen water fall from the sky.

​

Scientists call these “Proustian memories,” named after French writer Marcel Proust, who famously wrote about how the smell of a madeleine cookie triggered vivid childhood recollections. Basically, some fancy writer had the same experience I had in the cereal aisle, except he made it sound way more sophisticated. What’s remarkable is how specific these smell memories are. You might forget what you had for lunch yesterday, but catch a whiff of roast beef and you’ll remember exactly how Sunday dinners felt forty years ago. Our brains file away scent memories with startling clarity, complete with emotional attachments.

​

So the next time someone catches you doing something vaguely creepy in public because a smell triggered a memory, just explain you’re experiencing a Proustian moment. It sounds way classier than “Sorry, you smell like my French teacher and now I want cookies.” I’m definitely still banned from Safeway, though.

​​

-------------

Catherine Uretsky

Editor in Chief, Estrella Publishing