Lawn Care and the Smell of Memories
Photo by Daniel Watson on Unsplash
Despite the curtain of white falling outside my window, it is finally spring.
Last week, I rolled the lawnmower out of the shed for the obligatory preparations: clearing off the dust and grime of last fall’s final run, opening the gas valve, and this year I changed the blade. Lying on my side in the grass I could smell the rust and metal as the old blade came loose from its moorings.
The new blade fit perfectly; shining black and sharp.
Then the oil change. Typically, I have my daughter help me with this part, but this spring she was otherwise occupied. Call it a father-daughter bonding moment, call it life skill training, sure. The point is my mower’s oil intake is on the side, which requires a delicate tilt-and-lift action while aiming into a round black oil pan.
Two people make this dance a great deal easier.
But I’ve flown solo on oil changes before, so I lifted and tilted with all the obligatory mid-40’s grunts befitting a man of my gray hairs. The oil emptied from the mower, dark and rich like oil and balsamic.
I set the mower back on its wheels and set to refilling the oil reservoir. Even with a funnel and a careful pour, oil coated the first two fingers of my left hand. Expecting this, I reached for a towel and wiped off the excess.
Motor oil of this golden new quality is much like substances such as garlic, onions, or bleach. Even after the wiping away, the scent remains.
I stood up and hovered my fingers just above my top lip. In that moment, I went back in time.
My uncle was a drag-race aficionado. Not in the American Graffiti sense, or the later Fast and The Furious sense, but in the sense of a paved track with a “Christmas tree” light system signaling the start of the race.
On the wall in his garage he proudly displayed an NHRA flag. In the garage, the yard, the driveway, and any other available space he displayed cars in various states of repair and revitalization.
His brother – my other uncle’s – early-80’s Camaro sat just behind the playhouse my grandfather built for us grandkids. I remember a late-60’s model Camaro as well, painted in a brownish-maroon.
I realize now that my love for the ’68 Camaro stems from these driveway visions.
My uncle always bore the vapor of motor oil – it followed him like the tail of comet, wafting through the yard, through the breezeway between garage and kitchen, and into the house.
I remember on the sink in the bathroom, without fail, there was a blaze orange bottle of pumice soap. The liquid soap with a grit that can remove just about any substance. I used that soap every once in a while, letting the orange smell drift up into my nostrils and the grit settle between my fingers.
My uncle had an enormous laugh, often punctuated by coughing but it was a rolling laugh that I tried to sustain until he cried. He loved Dr. Pepper. It was his love for the band ZZ Top that made me associate songs like “La Grange” and “Sharp-Dressed Man” with thundering engines and that deep, rich smell of motor oil.
My uncle passed away several years ago. Cancer.
Standing beside the mower, the oil smell fresh on my hand, I remembered my uncle. Standing hundreds of miles away from my West Virginia home, years away from my childhood self who felt that pumice soap for the first time, I walked easily into the past.
We all can. We all do.
In fact, the depth and value of our spiritual journey is rooted in what we remember - what we choose to remember.
In John’s tale of Jesus and the world, a smell memory is what moves Peter from denial to restoration. Peter rejects Jesus at an anthrakia – a charcoal fire in the courtyard during Jesus’ rigged trial. (John 18:18)
Jesus restores Peter on the beach beside a smoldering anthrakia – a charcoal fire roasting fish and feeding Peter’s waning strength. (John 21:9)
These are the only two occurrences of this word in the New Testament. Poignant that the smell of betrayal would be replaced by the smell of restoration, even though Peter would always smell both.
Smells, sights, sounds, and touches are key points for our journey with Spirit. They make us remember; they call us to be the “self outside the self” looking at our life not just at this moment but as a patchwork quilt of all the moments that lead to this place.
Memories, in fact, make us who we are. We have no idea who God is, who we are, and what life can and should be without the woven stories of our recollection.
As I smell motor oil, I remember my uncle. I remember the things I have learned since being a child around all the carcasses of cars yet to start again. The hurts, the disorientation that came as I lived longer in the Midwest than in my native South, I remember them.
The separation and divorce of my parents.
I remember my and Holley’s wedding.
When our daughter came crashing into the world after a brief and petrifying medical intervention.
It is all part of me, it makes me who I am.
Spirit gives us the gift of our senses and our memories so we can take a big, bold look at the places from which we’ve come and then say: So what does this mean?
Where are we going?
What do I realize now that I didn’t know then?
Who and what is Spirit inviting me to become?
I cap the oil reservoir and begin to fill the gas tank of the mower. The gas fumes remind me of another time…but that’s a different piece, a different story, for another time.
The knob of the pull-starter fits my hand, and it only takes a few tugs for the engine to hum to life. Time taken in late fall and now in early spring helps ensure that I won’t have to swear at the mower to get it to start (A trick I learned from, well, most of the men in my family).
Even as I walk and watch lines form through the tufty grass of the backyard, I still smell the motor oil. I think fondly about my uncle and all the things that made him unique.
Because, God has given me those deep stories again. A blessed regifting. A generosity of the past to remind me who I am now and who I will be in the future.
Just as soon as I’m done with the yard.