Associations

Today I went to a baseball match. Actually, I don’t think they call them ‘matches’. A baseball game. I enjoyed it. Definitely a whole blog post in there – another day.

It made me think about sensory associations. It was the loud, twangy thwack of the baseball on the (five syllable) aluminium bat that got me started. I bet that to Americans, that particular sound says ‘summer’. I bet they’d recognize it instantly, even if they’d been away from America for decades. I bet they’d close their eyes, and see in their mind’s eye a baseball pitch from their childhood or college days, feel the heat of the sun on their backs, smell the hot dogs at the concession stand, and hear the song from the seventh innings stretch.

As an expat, you're constantly developing a new set of associations. I suppose that's true of everyone, but it's exaggerated by a move to another country. The equivalent of the baseball thwack for me would be the repetitive thump of tennis ball on racquet strings, or the thud of leather on willow. Those are the sounds of summer. Accompanied by the smell of newly cut grass, of course. When you move abroad, you start building up a new library of associations: sound, smell, taste, feel. They don’t replace the old library. I guess you just overlay one on top of the other.

I had a moment, a couple of years ago now, when an association stopped me short. I was outside a store, and I heard a clang, clang, clanging which I couldn’t place. It confused me, and then suddenly I knew it. It was the sound I used to love when we lived by the sea in Scotland, of boats in the harbour on a windy day, the ropes slapping against the metal masts. I looked around, and saw a tall flagpole. Ah, that was it. Same sound, different context. A cross-reference in my library of associations.

Sensory associations run deep, and the expat has to undergo a little retraining. The comforting sound of coming home is no longer the click and turn of the key in the front door lock, but the whirring of the automatic garage door as it opens. I have to trust that a bathroom is disinfected, even though it doesn’t smell of Dettol. I’m guessing that for Americans, the smell of Lysol or Clorox carries that same hygiene-assured feeling. The labels say they kill germs, but it’s been a leap of faith for me. They just don’t have that trusted Dettol smell...

I wash up after dinner to Jazz Café instead of The Archers. That didn’t feel right at first. How could I fill a sink with water and bubbles without that familiar music? And on the subject of music, does anyone else still miss the ba-ba-ba-ba of the Pearl and Dean adverts when they go to the cinema? That’s an age-related association as well as an expat-related one. The passing years pose no threat to old associations, though. When she visited, my mother said that the tornado siren, tested on Mondays at noon, was the wrong way round. The warning tone should be the all clear, and the all clear should be the warning. Strong associations from 70 years ago.

Once you start thinking about these smells, or sounds, or tastes, you realize what a huge number we all carry around with us, and of course we carry far more than we are consciously aware of. I love associations. Why don’t you tell me some of yours?

.