I love the prompt for this week’s blog assignment. I am an extremely sentimental person and get weepy when a smell reminds me of the summer or I see a movie that shows a place that I’ve been and have special memories attached to. One time I was seeing a movie with my grandmother, and we had both drank a glass of wine (in Europe so it was legal) so I was just ever so slightly inebriated and I went to the bathroom and smelled of a whiff of the kind cleaning fluid they always used in Prague, where I lived for a little while, they’ve used the same kind of fluid since they were under communist control and it’s really noxious and strong. It brought me right back to when I used to go to the movies on the weekends with my mom’s friend from college and her girlfriend who lived in Prague and we would sneak a bottle of wine into the theater and I just remember going to the bathroom after the movie feeling a slight buzz that comes from a combination of being a little sleepy, slightly drunk, and the adrenaline you get from watching a movie in the theater. It was such a strong association that I started crying in the bathroom, even though I wasn’t sad- the memory was just so strong. Going to Grand Central Station, a place I’ve maybe been once or twice, I got the kind of feeling of a place that is brimming with so much history and so many special moments, so many farewells and excited departures, that even though I didn’t have any emotional connections, I still could feel the weight of it all. I really liked doing the audio tour because it made me feel like I was going to a museum with my grandmother, she loves getting audio tours. It felt really enchanting to learn facts like how the clock in the center of the concourse was set exactly correctly, or the tiny square of filth on the ceiling, evidence of how the rest of it had been restored or that the pink marble steps were modeled after those in the Paris Opera House. I felt like I could forget that I was in the New York City that I knew and could step into the New York City that I saw in the movies and read about in books. There was one room, officially named the Baltimore Room but dubbed the “kissing room” because it was the last room before the tracks for the long distance trains. I imagined being a young woman living in New York City in the early 1900’s, my friends and family coming with me to Grand Central to see me off as I took a train across the country to California, maybe where I would be attending school or starting a new prestigious job. I thought about the sweet couples and families who would be kissing all around me, and how warm and excited I would feeling hugging and kissing the people I loved goodbye. It must have been so much more momentous to go on a trip back then. This visit made me think that I should go to (some) tourist destinations that I haven’t yet been too, and see the beauty of the city I live in.
pictures from the “kissing room,” the first is a blackboard where they would write the arrival and departure times and the second is an old school shoe shining station.
Julie W
I think it is beautiful that you associated your own experience with something others could feel. Smells definitely do have a weird way of evoking the strongest memories. It is so powerful to see that you could feel the feelings that others might have had in destinations such as the kissing room. This proves that many times we do forget the beauty of our city. Great work Julie!