The five senses are a vital part of a writer’s bag of tricks when transporting readers to an imaginary world. If you want to know how powerful a hold your senses have on you, take a page from Keri Smith’s This Is Not a Book. Or two pages, to be exact:
I randomly picked five things I had at hand to see what the sense of them might evoke.
Scent. A bottle of Chanel No. 5. Though I no longer enjoy perfume as much as I once did, this remains my favorite of them all. It’s a classic. I have received Chanel No. 5 twice in my life. The first bottle was from a man who broke my heart with lies. I have long ago forgiven the damage, but in my memory, he has no room lined with affection or colored by good times. I rarely reminisce about him to others. If I think of him, it’s most often with disappointment in myself for being gullible. This bottle is the second I was given, by a man who was my friend. He also broke my heart. I never forgave him because there was nothing to forgive. He was ill when he said and did cruel things. This perfume is seventeen years old. He has been dead sixteen years. I think of him with love and compassion. I tell stories about him, and even the sad ones remind me how deeply our friendship ran. The perfume no longer smells the way it should. Life doesn’t always treat us the way it should. But some things are better held close than others.
Sound. A bell, on a cord, with a plaid ribbon. This bell is the sound of Christmas to me. Throughout my life, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Christmas. When I was given the chance to write a Christmas romance by Kensington, I muttered to Tim, “I hate Christmas,” and he said, “There’s your first line.” I still don’t embrace the holiday with the fervor of many people I know, but it was certain friends’ love for the season that finally made me surrender and make the best of it. One of those friends is Lynne, and probably twenty years ago, she made bells for a few of us to wear at one of her Christmas parties. Every year that I’m in Houston, we spend either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day out at Green Acres with Lynne and her family, and I always wear this. I suppose when it comes to time with friends, peace on earth, or pictures of snowy landscapes, I say, “More Christmas bell!”
Sight. Gold wedding band. This is the wedding band my father gave my mother when they married in 1947. It did have a pattern on it, but those lines were worn smooth many years ago. When I was growing up, she never took off this ring. Even when she had surgery, she made them tape it rather than remove it. When my father came back from one of his overseas tours, he brought her a new diamond and wedding band from Japan. She wore that set sometimes, but sooner or later, this ring always returned to her finger. Same thing a few years later, when she picked out a platinum solitaire and band. She wore it most of the time, but now and then went back to this one. Ultimately, she gave the other sets away to children or grandchildren, but this one stayed with her until she died, even if she didn’t always wear it after my father died. She made me promise that no jewelry would be buried with her. I’m glad she insisted on that, because I don’t think anything that belonged to either of my parents holds as much value to me as this ring. If I close my eyes and see her hands sewing, cooking, gesturing as she told a story, lighting a cigarette, opening a purse, resting on my father’s shoulder, holding a grandchild–the ring is always there.
Taste. I chose these jelly beans made by SweeTarts not because they’re a favorite of mine, but because every time I see them, I go right back to being a young teen again. The Susans (there were two), Lynne, and I would buy those ginormous SweeTarts and hold them in our mouths as long as we could without biting them. They were as tart as their name, and eventually, the inside of my cheek would feel raw from them, or the sugar would make me choke. But thinking about those sensations makes me remember sitting by a swimming pool, or lying out in the yard slathered in baby oil mixed with iodine, trying to get a tan, then running through sprinklers to get cool. SweeTarts are hot days, giggling girls, newly mown grass, chlorine, and drawing up our mouths from that sweet and sour combination.
Touch. It’s been said that no person can have a good day in uncomfortable shoes. These Barbie shoes represent the mystery that is fashion to me: How can women wear the crazy shoes they choose? Then again, I remember my first pair of high heels. My first pair of platform shoes. My most expensive pair of heels. The shoes that I squeezed my feet into for too many years before I decided that nothing was worth being that uncomfortable. However, though I haven’t worn heels since the 1980s, I still understand the way even the most unfashionable of us (me!) reconsider and think that the pinch, the rub, the ache, the risk, the strain, just might be worth it for that OMG-gorgeous-pair-of-shoes-at-Nordstrom. ON SALE!
