Kate wrote her Linneas Lights blog contest entry almost entirely in snapshots, one smell per line, and by the end you feel you have walked through her grandmother’s kitchen.
Table of Contents
Guest Post by Kate Collins
for Linnea’s Lights Blog Contest
The most haunting, endearing remnants of childhood are the fragrances imprinted permanently upon our brains, called up again and again, floods of memories, at every familiar whiff.
Suddenly I’m 4 again, peering up at my mother as she brews fresh coffee in a pyrex percolator on the stovetop, cinnamon coffeecake in the oven. After-work hugs from my steelworker father, faint scent of oil on his hands. I’m 6, watching grandpa change a tire on a hot summer day, machine shed air of diesel, gasoline.
Humid August, heavy with the musty breath of cornfields. Searching for newly-laid eggs in sweet straw beds under placid hens. Running barefoot in freshly tilled garden, rich black Illinois soil, popping sun-warmed raspberries into mouths with berry-stained hands.
Climbing trees, smells of leaves and bark, playing endless hours on carpets of freshly-mown grass with apple-blossom breezes, then, worn-out, coming in to dinner prepared lovingly by grandma, aromas of the old country.
 |
| photo from underground.com |
Autumn brought dusty harvest and burning leaves, evening bonfires and roasting, toasting, burnt marshmallows. Long midwest winters, oh-so-cozy with Christmas pine and daily sweets as icy gales beckoned, “come play in the snow!” And now, creating happy, fragrant memories for my own children, I light a Holiday candle as sleet begins to pelt the windows, and put on a pot of coffee.
A childhood told in smells
What I love about Kate’s piece is how little it explains. Percolator coffee, cinnamon coffeecake, diesel in a machine shed, warm raspberries picked by hand. She trusts the nouns to do the work.
That is a good habit for anyone who writes about fragrance. Our noses store a scene better than a description, so naming the object usually beats naming the feeling.
Notice, too, how the piece moves through the year. It opens in a kitchen, runs through a humid August, turns to autumn bonfires and ends in deep winter. A Linneas Lights blog contest entry could have stayed in one season, but Kate’s gives the reader a whole childhood in the order the nose remembers it.
Her father’s oily hands, her grandfather’s tire change, her grandmother’s old-country dinner: people sit at the center of nearly every line. That is why the Linneas Lights blog contest entry lands. We do not remember smells alone, we remember who was standing beside them.
Kate wrote for the Linneas Lights blog contest, where readers shared scent memories with us. Her piece stood out for how few words it wasted.
I have read many entries for the Linneas Lights blog contest, and few move so fast. Each line is a new room.
Turning a memory into a candle choice
Memory lists like this double as shopping lists: burning leaves and bonfires point toward smoky, woody blends, and freshly mown grass and apple blossom lean green and floral. Coffeecake and grandma’s cooking suggest warm, bakery-style scents with cinnamon, vanilla and spice.
Farm smells are the hardest to bottle. Soil, straw and diesel rarely appear in candle lines, and I understand why. The closest cousins are earthy blends with moss or woods, which can echo damp ground, and a crisp green scent that stands in for a lawn.
Kitchen memories are easier. Coffee, cinnamon and baked sweets are all familiar territory, so look for descriptions that mention spice and vanilla and skip anything that sounds sharply floral.
The Christmas pine is the easy one, because evergreen and fir are a standard holiday family. If a candle name does not tell you much, check the maker’s page for the exact notes before you buy.
Try a simple exercise before you shop. Write down five smells from your own childhood, then circle the one that makes you smile fastest. Take that word to the shop and ask for something close, because sales staff are usually delighted when a customer arrives with a story instead of a brand name.
Holiday candles deserve a word here. Kate lights one as sleet starts to fall, which is exactly when they work best: cold air outside, closed windows, a pot of coffee. Fir, cinnamon and orange are the usual stars of the season, and a short evening burn is plenty.
If the Linneas Lights blog contest taught me one thing, it is that memories make better shopping guides than reviews.
Why the Linneas Lights blog contest entry stays with you
The ending is quiet: sleet on the windows, a holiday candle lit, a pot of coffee on. She is not remembering anymore, she is making the next set of memories for her own children.
That turn is what I would point to if someone asked how to write a good entry. Look back, then look at the room you are standing in.
It is also a reminder to keep the flame in sight. Never leave a burning candle alone, especially in a busy holiday house full of coats, wrapping paper and excited kids.
I also like what the ending does for pacing. After all that looking back, the final image is a candle, a cup and weather at the window. Anyone who has lit a candle on a gray evening knows that feeling.
The Linneas Lights blog contest brought in all kinds of stories, but quiet ones like this stayed with me.
Entering a blog contest sensibly
Contests like this one are friendly, but they reward preparation. Read the prompt twice, keep to any length limit, and post before the deadline. Give credit for photos you did not take, the way Kate did with hers.
Answer the question you were asked and not the one you wish you had been asked. Hosts remember the entries that stayed on topic.
For more voices from the same contest, read how Bonnie Jacobs approached the prompt, then compare it with Andrea Villarreal’s entry. Each writer finds a different door into the same house.
If you are curious why smell pulls memories up so quickly, the Wikipedia page on olfaction is a decent starting point. Meanwhile, I am happy to let Kate’s percolator win the argument.
A Linneas Lights blog contest entry like Kate’s is also a good template for a thank-you note, a toast or a holiday card. Short, concrete lines beat long, vague ones every time.
The Linneas Lights blog contest was a friendly one, and it rewarded honesty over polish.
Kate’s entry shows what the Linneas Lights blog contest was after: real scents from real lives.
Even if you never entered the Linneas Lights blog contest, write your own list tonight.
Read the Linneas Lights blog contest entries together and you get a small history of how ordinary households smell.
