You know the smell that’s like a key to unlock the doors of the past. Or acts as a map, leading you backwards to a certain day.



For me it’s my grandmother’s laundry room.



I find myself sitting in my grandmother’s old broken rocking chair staring ahead at her old fashion washing machine. I watch the clothes gradually get lost and slowly drift into the hypnotic circling water.



I’m not sure if I’m doing this to procrastinate folding the clothes in the basket beside me or if I’m just using that time in this space to reflect and remember the things that have been so far from my memory.



It’s not exactly neither a pleasant smell nor bad, just a smell.



When I breathe in the rusty pipes, well water, dust coming from the rugs and dryer sheets this triggers my brain like a secret code that allows me to teleport back like a time machine in my head. Flash!..



The suns coming through the tiny window on the light green walls. I’d follow my grandmother and would do any small task of either matching socks or letting me pour the detergent that always smelled like blueberries. I would do this until she gave me the kind smile of approval.



She wouldn’t be proud of me.



Like my grandmothers old washing machine, I was stuck in cycle. But no matter how much people try to douse blueberry detergent in my nightmare I couldn’t get clean.



I wish this smell really could let me go back.