THE WONDERFUL POWER OF MEMORIES

Every year my iphone (and I suppose that of many) without my/our knowledge and with all good intentions (we hope) automatically creates a memory that usually coincides with a wide time span ranging from weeks to months, and even anniversaries. The mobile phone, that ‘cult’ object that we can no longer (unfortunately) do without, creates ‘by itself’ a (more or less accurate) assemblage by selecting photos from our archives and by means of a playlist of music tracks, it also associates the most appropriate soundtrack (for it). Probably, given that we all (more or less consciously) have geolocation activated, most of the memories that the iphone creates are related to travel or to what (it) considers to be experiences. For example, this morning, from the ‘memories’ section of my mobile phone I received an unexpected ‘gift’: a ‘short film’ with an edition that deploys music, video and words (yes, the iphone also selects videos) entitled ‘VIENNA on the road, October 2023’. A temporal ‘rewind’ that reminds us where we were today, but a year ago… the result, regardless of whether the video is successful or not, creates an emotion or at least a nostalgic feeling towards something bygone.

Caught up in the daily grind and the race against time, there are episodes of our lives that we often forget, or unconsciously try to erase, and yet, playing on the words of Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón ‘sooner or later, the ocean of time brings back the memories we buried there’ and our trusty i-phone from time to time brings back these memories (good or bad) from its (our?) archives.

In some respects, the cloud is replacing our memory, it offers us infinite archive spaces for a fee and we deposit our memories on a virtual server capable (like the mind) of evoking memories (i.e. photos). Even without looking at the photos stored on the phone, sometimes just a small detail is enough to bring back a memory, a thought, a sensation, a taste, a sound or a smell, a scent in the air… which lights up the light bulb and transports us to forgotten places or events that happened years ago.

A few years ago, talking to Ms. Laura Bosetti Tonatto, perfumer and famous Italian ‘nose’, creator of extraordinary fragrances (among them the perfume of Queen Elizabeth of England) and curator of exhibitions and pairings between art and perfume, revealed to me a little secret of the immortality of scents and their combinations in nature and how in reality the customer is not looking for the perfect perfume but the most suitable one to activate his memories: the smell of Marseille from grandma’s laundry, of woods and tree bark, of roasted coffee or sweet tobacco from grandpa’s pipe, of citrus fruits from an uncle’s backyard or that of wild flowers that ignites in us the springtime stimuli.

The Hotel BonSol, believing fervently in this, has relied on pioneers of natural cosmetics for the selection of its amenities; such as the company Tot Herba, which in its body products has used local products such as almond, lavender, rosemary, with their characteristic island scents, or D’Essencia LaB, which after a study of the Hotel, its history, its warm atmosphere… proposed a wonderful woody scent that seems to have always belonged to its different environments. This space/environment harmony creates what could be called ‘olfactory fidelity’, as the scent, in this case, transports us to those wonderful memories spent in a specific destination, inciting in us the desire to return to that place.

Our five senses have the wonderful power to evoke memories. In Japanese culture, ‘positive remembrance’ is translated with this word, Natsukashii, which indicates the ‘joyful melancholy’ of recalling a past experience, creating a feeling of sweet nostalgia for the past.

In 1987 the Japanese scientist Susumu Tonegawa received the Nobel Prize for Medicine, after demonstrating through an experiment with mice suffering from stress-induced depression, that they could be cured by stimulating the brain cells where positive memories are stored. This clearly demonstrates the enormous power of these…

Hence my wife Natalia Xamena, a hopeless nostalgic, together with her co-founder Monica Matanza, decided to create their own merchandise space signed Hotel BonSol, The BonSoul (or soul of the BonSol). With the idea of developing a collection of various products inspired by the soul of the hotel, by Mallorca, its sun, its sea… which, when purchased, would transport one to moments lived in this magical place, evoking wonderful times spent here and thus stimulating the positive memories of our dear buyers, during the cold winter days, in their daily lives, with the hope that the sun of the BonSol will continue to transmit its warmth to them… at least until their next visit!

Federico Giannini