I love poking around in department stores.  Saturday mornings, with a dollar or so in my pocket, I ride the bus downtown to roam around in the department stores to buy my treasures for the coming week.   These stores are filled with many colors, textures, smells, sounds, and people bustling around.  So much to see and do.  Each store has its own individual atmosphere and line of merchandise.  If I did not know what store I was walking into I need only stand there and take in the environment with all my senses and I would know where I was.  I have my favorites though.  Woolworths and WT Grants are where I spend most of my shopping time.  Woolworths has all the books I could ever dream of reading.  I spend part of each Saturday picking out the best Nancy Drew book that I haven’t yet read. It is my goal to read them all.  Woolworth’s also has the best collection of stamps. The cheapest bag is mostly throwaways but I always hope I can find one or two that are keepers.   And the lunch counter has the best hamburgers, hot dogs and chocolate cream pies.  WT Grants on the other hand has all the craft materials that I need for making my pot holders and for my embroidery projects.  But I have a special place in my heart for WT Grant’s for another reason.  As I push my way through the big heavy double doors and step into the store, the space I enter is filled with the aroma of food. There are hot dogs rotating on spigots, pretzels warming in their boxes and there are other items nearby too – an array of chocolates nicely arranged in trays – nonpareils, chocolate stars, caramels. And then there is the best of all – the roasting cashews. Yes, it is the cashews that I am talking about.  They are resting in a large transparent warming container just basking in the heat, sending out a divine smell and becoming a beautiful golden color.  On cold winter days when I have to wait for my bus to bring me up the hill to home, it is the smell of those roasting cashews that gives me a sense of warmth and safety.  I can rarely afford to buy those cashews; only a small amount digs into my meager resources, but once in a while, just once in a while I will sacrifice other purchases for a small bag of these cashews sprinkled with a hint of salt.   A little taste of Heaven!

Who knows if my memory is correct or not and does it really matter anyway?  These days I often like to poke around in my memory bank to think about those days when life was less complicated and more innocent, when a couple of dollars went a long way and I had wonderful and exciting choices to make.  When I can still bring up the smell of those roasting cashews.

 Do I run the risk of delving into these memories and not coming back to the present?  I hear so much about staying present and not getting lost in memories.  But here is another point of view that I subscribe to.  Can we not every so often when life gets ahead of us and feels too heavy, can it not be helpful and healing to relive those wonderful memories.  I will always remember the smell of roasting cashews in WT Grants Department Store on the corner of Broadway and Third.  Everything has changed since then and not much is left of those stores but I can experience a wonderful sense of well-being in those memories.  I don’t want to go back to those times but there, in that small pocket of memory is an experience that helps me rest in the present moment knowing full well that I could not be here now without having lived through those past moments.  Roasting cashews on Broadway and Third is a small haven. It helps me navigate life today.   It is a happy, peaceful memory.