It’s amazing what the power of a smell can do to a person. You can be walking through a busy mall, determined and walking with purpose, then suddenly stopped in your tracks by a familiar smell. It can be food, cologne, flowers. And suddenly you are taken back to a familiar place, a better time. Your pace slows and you take the time to look around you and absorb life.

Some scents are intoxicating: my husband’s cologne, a campfire, white roses. I get butterflies in my stomach, weak in the knees, often goose bumps.

Others invoke comfort (and sometimes hunger): Fresh baked bread, waffle cones from Baskin-Robbins, kettle corn at the farmers market. I want to curl up with a good book and a blanket.

The more powerful smells can transport you back in time to relive a moment in the past. These are different for everyone. For me, the smell of an old baseball glove takes me back to playing softball with my dad. Chanel No. 5 reminds me of the last Christmas I was able to spend with my mother-in-law. Hot buttered popcorn always reminds me of my first job working at a movie theater. All these memories are tied inside a simple scent.

Today I am wearing my new Sweet Pea lotion from Bath & Body Works. It’s very comforting, soothing. Whenever things get stressful or aren’t going my way, I find myself breathing in deeply and letting the scent wash over me, in a way that only a smell can.