The nostalgia of the sweet scent
The nostalgia of the sweet smell
When I was young, from ages 4 to 15, oh how I hated driving the Lévis → Lac-Etchemin route. From my child’s perspective, the drive felt so long. Since we still didn’t have the house at the farm, we slept in the chalet part of the sugar shack. A green rectangular building with 1/4 of it being habitable. On the other side of the door, it was work clothes, tubing, and production. My parents had decided to buy this maple grove in 2010. On February 14, 2010, to be exact! For me, that meant traveling on spring evenings, far from my friends, who were all in Lévis. In fact, they envied me. “So cool, you have a maple grove!” Everyone at elementary school knew my brother and me as the kids who made maple syrup and sometimes missed school, because my mother and my stepfather had stayed up all night boiling the syrup.
From where I stood, I still didn’t realize how lucky I was. A pretty whiny child. We didn’t have wifi, so I had to download movies. I got carsick on the road (a small weak stomach, always). Always a way to roll my eyes at my mother when she told me we were going to the sugar shack in the evening after school. Spring sunshine arrived, and my brother and I played outside in the mud. Sometimes we’d come back in to warm up and watch a movie on the little cube TV while hearing the pumps on the other side of the door. It was noisy, but we got used to it; we turned up the volume. At 8 years old, sitting on a barrel, Sébastien telling me “tickle the dragon,” referring to the switch that lights the flame under the evaporator.
At 10 years old, in the middle of winter, P-O and I sledding in our very own “Sledding Center 2000.”
At 11 years old, me drawing on the small kitchen table with the fire from the hearth warming the tiny room.
At 12 years old, my mother telling me, “come see, it’s flowing!” Sébastien suggesting I go on the four-wheeler with him to the pumping station. When the whole family would gather outside on camping chairs to enjoy the sun. P-O and I building forts in the woods, spending hours and hours outside until nightfall. So many memories…
And then Covid came, and I realized the immense privilege I had of being in the country, safe and isolated. So from ages 16 to 17, I grew up like any teenager in my little room. By then, it had been 2 years since my parents had bought the house along Route 277. I would go for walks in the sun on our land, listen to movies and music, and enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside.
They say smell memory is the strongest. I can confirm it. The smell of maple syrup is what takes me back to my childhood and to memories of happy moments. Recently, I made some 4L for an order. While taking a break from managing the farm’s social media accounts (which I’ve officially been doing for 4 years now), I put on my work clothes and tubing and poured the hot maple syrup into the cans. And that sweet smell gently rose to my nose, bringing back those happy childhood memories.
I’m now 20, soon to be 21. I live in Quebec City, 1h20 from the farm. Now I’m the one who drives and makes the trip. I still don’t like driving, but oh, how I’d love to be able to teleport myself there at any moment and enjoy the farm like I did when I was little. When I took that smell of freshly boiled maple syrup for granted. When I naively enjoyed that big property in the calm of nature.
It’s important, at every stage of life, to notice the beautiful little things around us. Because you never know when they won’t be there anymore. Enjoy the present. Enjoy, simply.
