I don’t know if this is common in Guadalajara or just my neighborhood, but several times a week, while out walking, I hear cowbells ringing. When I first followed the sound, I discovered a garbage truck with workers trailing behind, collecting trash and wearing cowbells attached to their belt loops.

It’s a sound that takes me back to the 1950s and the streets of my small hometown in rural Illinois where trash was picked up by a horse-drawn wagon.

I don’t remember cowbells announcing the arrival of the trash wagon, but there must have been something that brought all the kids outside to meet it.

And it must have been something resembling a cowbell, because I hadn’t thought of the wagon in decades.

It’s one of those instances where our senses retrieve a memory of a place or time without any conscious effort on our part.

There was a perfume I wore on my only other time in Mexico – a vacation to Mazatlan 38 years ago. The perfume isn’t popular anymore, but for years I would catch a whiff of that scent on someone walking by or standing next to me in an elevator and it would immediately take me back to the beaches of Mazatlan.

I can’t imagine that the time I’m spending in Guadalajara now will be defined by something as untrue to Mexico as my own personal perfume. The streets I walk on aren’t marked by hotels. The people I meet aren’t catering to tourists. And the markets I frequent aren’t selling souvenirs.

Time will tell what sights, smells, or sounds will bring me back. It could be a woman walking in front of me with a long black braid reaching almost to her waist. A little girl in a school uniform with the same dark hair, adorned with perfect bows. The sound of a trowel against wet concrete. A sidewalk filled with orange or purple blooms brought down by a night rain. A person outside in the early morning hours sweeping the sidewalk. An untrimmed broom.

Or, maybe, I’ll be sitting in the stands of a Big Ten football game when I hear the ring of a cowbell and find myself back on the streets of Guadalajara.

Whatever it is, it’ll bring a smile to my face.

Jeanne is a transplanted Illinoisian who arrived in Guadalajara hoping for siestas. She was sad to discover that siestas are a thing of the past, but is still finding lots to like about Mexico.