We moved into our current house eight years ago, and every Sunday at 4:30 in the morning, I wake up (briefly, usually) to the smell of baking cookies. Our house is semi-detached, so I've always assumed this pleasant smell comes from the people adjoined to us. They keep different hours than we do, and it's not inexplicable that someone might be in the weekly habit of baking cookies at that (to my mind) God-forsaken hour.
This morning that sweet smell again pulled me from my sleep. I smiled and rolled over, ready to sink back into slumber, when it hit me: the tennants next door moved out two weeks ago. There's no-one there.
This odor has to originate from within the house; our windows are closed, and even if they weren't, there's no other place within sniffing range of our house that could produce the unmistakable smell of baking cookies. I'm told this house was one of four bakeries that serviced the community, back in the early 20th Century -- we have iron-work in our basement and shed left over from that period (and no, it doesn't smell like cookies). It's the strangest thing. The scent lingers right up until about 5:45 or so.
It's entirely possible, even likely, that there is simply a corner in my brain that, for whatever reason, has been tickled every Sunday morning at 4:30 for the last eight years. When I was a kid our family's Sunday morning tradition was to prop a few store-bought danishes into the oven and warm them up for breakfast -- melting icing sugar is not dissimilar to the smell of baking cookies. But I'm still mystified over why this should happen with such predictability. (The game's afoot!)
5 comments:
WP,
The sun seems to shine on your little Acadia even when the thunder stroms are pouring buckets all around you.
Your house, it would seem, is haunted by spirtis. And not just any spirits, but ones who have been condemned to their purgatory as bakers. How else to explain wafts of cookie-ish winds? So while these smells linger, have you asked yourself, or more particularly, have you asked your wife and duaghters, from whence the source? Do they smell it too or are you alone in your olfactory domaine? Maybe this is your writing muse, tempting you to arise earlier on Sundays to put the finihing touches to the Book of Memories?
No-one else has noticed the baking cookies, so it could well be my muse's attempt at coaxing me out of bed. That's certainly the kind of muse I'd like to keep on hand.
When I was tree planting for the northern British Columbia forestry industry we commonly experienced phantom smells when our spades opened the earth.
It didn't start until at least a month into the bush but it happened to more than a few of us. All of a sudden you would see one of your buddies stand up over a freshly opened hole and exclaim "Buttered popcorn! It was buttered popcorn this time."
Was it nerve damage or lunacy? There was enough nerve damage from the prodigious labour. 4:30 AM you would see a rag tag bunch of bushmen stumbling toward the cook tent, every one of them forcing open the fingers of their involuntarily clenched "shovel" hand with the "tree" hand. The brain just couldn't open that thing on its own. Most of the guys also lost sensation in their packing (stomping) foot. Some of them would get the sensation back in their toes around Christmas time.
As for lunacy, well too much time in the bush and even the bears start looking attractive...
That's it! I'm working too hard!! Must remove "blogging" hand with "cookie eating" hand....
I cudda sworn I left a comment here last night....
Call in the Regulars!
Post a Comment