I have read that the sense that is most likely to trigger memory is smell. I have not evidence to argue against that, but for me another sense that is really powerful in terms of triggering both memories and emotions.

I can make out the distinct sound of a Pratt & Whitney 9-cylinder Wasp Junior engine in an airplane from a long ways away. And if there are two, I recognize the sound immediately. I can tell you whether or not the twin engines are synchronized and whether or not the props are at full pitch just from the sound. I grew up listening for the sound of my dad’s Beech 18 and I could make out that sound from all of the other sounds before anyone else. Now when I hear that sound, I immediately turn my eyes skyward. Those planes are considered to be classic or antique now. Our Beech 18 was about the same age as me, and a 70-year-old airplane is definitely a classic. Hmm. . . I wonder if I’ve become a classic. I guess that is a topic for another journal entry.

Last night the sound that evoked memory and emotion was the sound of rushing water outside of our camper. We are camped next to Rock Creek near Red Lodge, Montana. The creek rushes from the high country and has already dropped almost 4,000 feet by the time it reaches Red Lodge and will drop another couple of thousand before it flows into the Yellowstone River. The stream bed is all boulders, mostly a foot or so in diameter, rounded by the rushing water. At high water you can hear the stones rolling and crashing into one another. This time of the year the rocks don’t move around as much, but the water is making a quick trip.

I grew up next to another mountain stream on its way to the Yellowstone and in the Yellowstone to the Missouri and the Mississippi and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. Two drainages to the west is my home valley. However, I am intimately familiar with Red Lodge, Rock Creek and the entire area. My paternal grandparents lived here when I was growing up and the town fills me with memories each time I visit.

But the sound. The music of water over rocks makes me nostalgic in ways that other sounds do not. I had forgotten how much I have missed that sound. Billings, Chicago, Hettinger, Boise, Rapid City, Mount Vernon, Birch Bay. I haven’t lived next to a mountain stream since I was 17. Over a half of a century has passed and the sound immediately transports me to my childhood and memories of playing in the river, fishing the river, throwing rocks into the river, and most of all, going to sleep with the river’s lullaby. Ah, what a sound! And what a wonderful sleep! Maybe the best sleep of all.

I am not unhappy with my home. I loved living in South Dakota. I have not been miserable because I have been away from the sound of Mountain Streams. I suppose that the technology exists to play a recording of that sound for sleeping. I know several people who use white noise machines for sleep, and perhaps the sound of water rushing over rocks is similar. But I do not want a recording.

I long for a river, with cold, clear water, and trout swimming in pools. I am captured by the promise of water so cold it makes your feet hurt and grasshoppers falling into the water that make the biggest, oldest trout rise to the surface with a splash you cannot ignore. And I rarely fish these days. I gave up my fly tying equipment to a church rummage sale years ago. I didn’t move my fly rods and reels. I am in a new place where clams are dug and crabs are caught in traps. I know that the sublime art of salmon fishing still exists on the waters of Western Washington, but the salmon are so threatened that it seems to me to be more just to leave the salmon fishing to members of the Nooksack and Lummi nations who have treaty rights guaranteeing them access to the magnificent fish.

I am quite content to simply listen to the river. I would not be surprised if the sound alone slows my breath rate and lowers my blood pressure.

Perhaps it is simply the fact that I need to seek opportunities to return to places of rushing water. I am formed by the waters of my life and Rock Creek is one of those waters that has made it into somewhere deep in my soul. When I am here, I feel home.

I shall not, however, linger too long. Home is also where my family dwells. Home is a new-to-us house that is a 15-minute walk from the beach and a 15-minute drive from Canada. Home is my dahlias and sunflowers and tomatoes. Home is the half-finished kayak project in the shop. Home is a church family that has been wonderful to us. Home is two colonies of bees that are producing honey that sweetens my tea and whose activities fascinate me. The sound of the bees swarming around the hive is another sound that triggers memory and meaning for me.

I don’t know what smells trigger my memories. Perhaps motor oil reminds me of my father. Baking bread always produces a kind of resurrection moment for me with my mother. Maybe the smell of the river running through willow trees is another important smell. I am sure that there are many smells that are special triggers for me.

Last night I didn’t worry about smells. I was reveling in the sound. And I hear it now as I prepare to publish this journal entry. I pray that others might find their way to a free-flowing mountain stream just to learn the power of water to shape our lives, emotions, thoughts and behaviors.

May you find peace like a river in your soul. My peace is rushing as a mountain stream.