A time machine, what a novel idea! We all have one, and the beauty is that it’s hardwired into each of us. Chances are you’ve already used yours, perhaps without even knowing it. So let’s formalize this relationship, and you’ll soon realize that it’s a writer’s dream come true.
The ability to re-visit the ephemeral scents of our past is an invaluable resource for writers. Not only does it help us properly shape the negotiated characters we addressed here in November, but those echoes of long-lost sensations we encounter during the journey may also inspire other pigments to step out of the shadows. They could arrive in the form of a new character, a fork in the road of your storyline, or that elusive middle piece to the jigsaw puzzle of a tale you’re writing; but something will materialize from your efforts. What continues to amaze me in these transits is how the imprint of our past endures and remains accessible in both the emotional and physical spaces. It might not always be pleasant, in fact it could bring some tears, maybe even regret, but I tend to grow from the experience, as do the characters or scene that I’ve traveled back in time to write.
I’m intrigued! How do we accomplish such a feat?
My machine runs best on fragrances, mostly the vintage bottles that I’ve collected over the years, a fraction of which are seen in the header above. Nature also holds scents and seasons that can help us slip time, and if you add a period playlist to the mix you might be surprised by the impact. However, for today’s voyage we’re only fueling with fragrance. Our chosen scent is one deposited from the leaky bottles that occupied my swim team bag over the years: Jovan Musk for Men.
The scene below was generated by a fourth grade class photo which I came across while organizing some files. Whenever I find these I can’t help but pause for the challenge of putting a name to each of the fresh young faces frozen in time by the click of a photographers shutter. Fortunately, I’m still in touch with my two besties in the picture, but there’s a girl in the front row who draws my eye and a smile when I recall our winter encounters seven years after this photo was taken. So, with this promised post of the time machine, I’ve decided to bring you back with me for a visit.
Our prompt.
Lincoln High School – December of 1977 – It’s a frosty Seattle morning, the time is 5:15 AM. I’m waiting alone outside of Briggs Pharmacy for the city bus that brings me to swim team practice every weekday morning during the season. Crystal, a cute girl that I’ve known since the fourth grade arrives shortly afterwards. She’s headed for the same pool, we’re on the same team, and yet I don’t ever recall us speaking. Instead, we just stood there in an awkward silence until the bus came. When practice started we could end up in the same lane for a drill, I might even swim behind her for fifty yards and slap her feet, something we all did to each other to push us harder. I guess the point is that we weren’t really strangers, or were we?
With our travel plan set, we now need a goal.
My hope for this trip is to reconnect with what was happening in my life at the time. There’s a lot of content to pull from in this scene, but today I’d like to understand more about my introvertive nature with Crystal. I’m seeking this information on behalf of a developing character of similar age and circumstances. Remember, we consider these trips as a research project, and remarkably we’re the library. Since I can’t type and travel at the same time, the writing that follows is what transpired during this voyage.
3 — 2 — 1 . . .
It’s a quiet 25° morning here in Franklin, which matches our target perfectly. Following a dab of Jovan on the underside of my wrists and a few deep relaxing breaths, I find myself walking in the dark chill up N. 55th on my way to the bus stop. Experience has taught me to materialize before my target location and then walk into the scene; it places me in harmony with the surroundings and yields a deeper immersion. Soon after arriving at Briggs Pharmacy, Crystal shows up. It’s kind of weird that I don’t see her approach, she’s just suddenly here; wearing a heavy coat, stocking hat, a scarf around her neck, and carrying her swim bag. She stands behind me, just off my right shoulder about twenty feet away, the same as she did forty-eight years ago. True to form I don’t say anything. A healthy dose of teenaged self-importance or narcissism appears as an obvious offender; but today’s standoffishness is the result of something more than adolescent immaturity. I also realize my insecurity is just the outfacing symptom. What I’m really in pursuit of is the root cause; that’s where the work gets done.
Crystal is far from an intimidating figure, in fact we have plenty of things to talk about based on our school history alone, but conversation is impossible for me at this time in life. Unstable circumstances at home and my rudderless existence of the day subconsciously kept me from developing any real intimacies for fear of my secret being discovered, a secret I didn’t even understand. Crystal presents as shy, but today with older eyes, I see her truth. She’s just reserved, with far more going on behind her furtive gaze, well beyond the typical high school girl banter. She was a deep thinker, an intellectual creative, perhaps wrestling with her own real-life ghosts, just like I am.
I pause here to consider something else that was lost on me years ago. Crystal had to have known that she wasn’t going to be competitive as a swimmer; she was far too gentle and physically slight to cause the water to boil from a powerful stroke and flutter kick. But most admirably, Crystal rolled out of bed each winter morning and trudged up to that cold dark bus stop; she swam her best workout just like the top performers did, and she never gave up. That took strong character and courage; it also showcased her steadfast resolve to do something for her own growth.
So now my regret shows up. I welcome it because regret isn’t here to guilt, torment, or humiliate; instead it’s to be embraced as an adjunct to healing through understanding and acknowledgment. As mentioned earlier, our travels often reveal more than our initial goals; in this case the Crystal-thread ultimately brought me to the root of my insecurity; a very low self-esteem. It was an awful period in life for me and left much wreckage, but today’s descent was worthy of the character I’m currently working with.
Unpacking historical scenes in our lives resembles the restoration and up-conversion of a classic film viewed through the microscope of hindsight. In the process, we can experience the beauty and the pain that we missed during the original shoot, which is an incredible gift. Unfortunately those scenes are already part of the historical record, and we can’t alter them. In keeping with the holiday season, they are what they are: the ghosts of Christmases past, as Dickens might say.
Thank you for joining me on this long-winded journey which became much more personal than anticipated, but mining the depths of our origins is what we novelists do. I hope you find a nugget or two helpful for your own writing adventures. If you’ve never done this, please try it for yourself. For the initial adventure, I suggest using a scent that you wore at the time of your first real romantic interest, that usually garners a powerful response, maybe even some butterflies. Let me know!
In closing, I did an online and social media sweep for Crystal, hopeful that she might enjoy the post and this snapshot of our shared history together. I wondered what she would say about those bus stop years, and if my older eyes finally saw her for who she actually was. A few keystrokes later I discovered that her father was a scientist with several patents to his name. Her mother, a notable poet, spent her early childhood just a couple of hours from where I currently live in Tennessee. My sense of Crystal during this time travel as a creative intellectual seems well-founded based upon these data points alone. Sadly, our dear Crystal passed away in 2022, fifty-two years to the month of our class photo. Though we won’t have the chance to share a memory or two from those years, I’ll never forget the small, quiet girl from the fourth grade, or the bus stop mornings we shared together, and Crystal will always have a special place in my swim lane.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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Up next – The Character Called Place
Until then—
Happy words,
-Bruno