The Taste of an Apple or the Odor of Woodsmoke

Fridays are Scrapbook Day here. The title of this past Wednesday's post, "I feel as if we've met somewhere . . ." brought to mind a scrap I'd saved from a short story called "Of Love: A Testimony," by that wonderful tormented writer, John Cheever. The quote has nothing to do with what I wrote about in the blog post but a lot to do with how Jerome and Viña get entangled in Blues for the Muse.

Cheever writes:

True love and hate are matters of first sight, rousing a strain deeper than memory. And yet they have the character of a memory unexpectedly startled like remembering a friend at the sight of his umbrella or a voyage recalled by the east wind. Meeting an enemy seems more a matter of recognition than discovery and it is the same, only deeper with a lover. Where have I seen you before? he wanted to ask her while he stood there talking with [his friend] Sears. And yet he knew that he had never seen her before. It was like being thrown back to a forgotten afternoon by the taste of an apple or the odor of woodsmoke.

--

[You know the two kids in the photo. It's like the past before the past, isn't it?--that feeling of being "thrown back to a forgotten afternoon." It may not be about lovers as such but is very much about "the taste of an apple or the odor of woodsmoke."]

And here's that last blog post I mentioned: https://www.bluesforthemuse.com/post/i-feel-as-if-we-ve-met-somewhere