Scent
When I left the hospital last Friday, the first thing that struck me as they wheeled me outside was that the air had a scent to it. Hospitals, of course, have their own smell of fear and alcohol and soap and more fear. Outside, though, it smelled like trees. Maybe not great trees--it certainly wasn't that Southeast Alaska rainforest scent that is one of the best things that can ever happen to your nose--but it did at least smell green and alive.
Some years ago, I heard a story of a kid who had grown up in Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutians. Then the family moved to Ketchikan, in Southeast, and the kid couldn't take it. He said the whole place stank, stank, and he couldn't breathe. Finally, they figured out it was the smell of trees that had gotten to him. The kid had never smelled trees before.
But isn't that why we go anywhere? Isn't that the clearest way to experience anything? It's one of the main things we can learn from dogs, who understand how important it is to simply put your nose in the air and see what's out there.
That great Joe Jackson line, "but I can dream/until I go/of smells that I don't recognize."
Paprika in Budapest. The deep, cold smell of Japan in winter. Scotland smelled like lost love, and in Hawaii, standing next to flowing lava, the smell was burning tennis shoes and a world where anything was possible.
I made it to the back yard today, walked under the orange trees. Tonight, looking forward to finding out what the Canary Islands smell like--for hundreds of years, they were the end of the world, and one must always wonder what the smell of the edge is--I'm hoping for dreams of the particular scents that haunt me, that they'll come and clear the last few weeks out of my system.
Some years ago, I heard a story of a kid who had grown up in Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutians. Then the family moved to Ketchikan, in Southeast, and the kid couldn't take it. He said the whole place stank, stank, and he couldn't breathe. Finally, they figured out it was the smell of trees that had gotten to him. The kid had never smelled trees before.
But isn't that why we go anywhere? Isn't that the clearest way to experience anything? It's one of the main things we can learn from dogs, who understand how important it is to simply put your nose in the air and see what's out there.
That great Joe Jackson line, "but I can dream/until I go/of smells that I don't recognize."
Paprika in Budapest. The deep, cold smell of Japan in winter. Scotland smelled like lost love, and in Hawaii, standing next to flowing lava, the smell was burning tennis shoes and a world where anything was possible.
I made it to the back yard today, walked under the orange trees. Tonight, looking forward to finding out what the Canary Islands smell like--for hundreds of years, they were the end of the world, and one must always wonder what the smell of the edge is--I'm hoping for dreams of the particular scents that haunt me, that they'll come and clear the last few weeks out of my system.
posted by e. Readicker-Henderson at 10:22 PM
1 Comments:
As I recall, you weren't fond of Hong Kong, but it had a smell I occasionally still experience in Chinatowns or even individual restaurants - meat, hot oil, fresh vegetables, a whiff of rotting food, and something else, not sure what. But I know the smell instantly, and if it's from a restaurant here in North America, I know the food will be good.
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