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It was best to stand with your heels hanging off the edge of the concrete, your toes just touching the metal of the vent. We pushed our faces forward a bit to catch the stream of air escaping the vent behind the library at Boston University. It smelled of books. It was the condensed version of the library’s extensive collection of volumes on African history, of the complete works of Shakespeare, of the texts on contract law, broadcast journalism, and biographies of key members of the Dada art movement. They had all joined together and moved to the vent. It was their great scent escape.It’s been years since I thought about that vent. It was behind the library, on a grassy strip that most students favored for daytime bikini bathing but that my friends and I took for our own at night. It grabbed hold of me yesterday, the place and scent so right there, when a friend posted a link to “in the library,” a perfume by Christopher Brosius.
Though scent frequently pops to mind when I think about the steamed lobsters, cinnamon rolls, or warm biscuits I’ve devoured while on the road, I rarely think of the scents connected to places. So, yesterday, I closed my eyes and just tried to open myself up to the aromas–good and bad–attached to past trips. While I didn’t set a rule for myself that I could only waft away to U.S. locations, I noticed that those were the scent memories that filtered in first and strongest. There was a brief thought of the migraine-inducing bus exhaust fumes from a trip into the mountains of Ecuador but it felt distant. The scent of used goods along the route of the Highway 127 Sale. The brininess of the waterfront in Stonington, Maine, just after the sun had slipped out of sight. The slight muskiness of the pilot who took me up in an ultralight plane just outside Fairbanks, Alaksa. Those poured in and, along with them, a quick mental video show of each trip.
Smell is one of the greatest memory triggers around yet it rarely plays a role when people tell each other about their travels. We can show each other photos. We can play back the sounds of a place. But to really get a person to understand the scents of a place, they have to go there on their own or buy a high-end scented candles. So, perhaps, scent is a secret key back to places we love. It lets us keep part of the trip just for us. Moving forward, I’ll be sure to take more notice of it.
Nice post! And you’re right, scent is not something that you can bring up about a trip and have anyone else (unless they were there with you) “get it”.
The smell of a library or a bookstore is one of the greatest smells in the world — let’s hope that it doesn’t become a distant memory as the digital world takes over!!
The smell of diesel exhaust instantly transports me back to several amazing places that I’ve traveled to in the developing world. So quickly, in fact, that I’m “there” before I even really realize it! It’s like my brain has to catch up! Make sense? I’m no fan of diesel exhaust, but when it conjures up memories like that, I can’t help but like it a little!!
Thanks Jennifer. I was going to put something into the post about my worry that, one day, the library (and its vent) would disappear but I didn’t want to depress everybody too much. (Imagine: a room of people sitting there reading Kindles instead. Oh the horror.)
Well, off to find a sage- or seawater-scented candle – will have to make do until I can fly away again. (sigh)
For me, wanderlust strikes with the smell of Greyhound bus restroom disinfectant. I know, I’m a crazy romantic…
After living in Peru for half of 2005, I can safely say that the smell of exhaust makes me think of Lima, and the smell of burning wood (like, a campfire, sort of) makes me think of the Andes.
Also, there is a distinctly sweet smell to the air around my home in California Wine Country. Especially around harvest time, it is a comfort that, after a long trip, says, “Welcome home.”
When I head to upstate New York next week, a major reason will be so I can smell the air up there. There’s nothing like it. No joke.
Oh yeah. The mix of exhaust fumes and the Hudson River. And food.
Jodi — I couldn’t get over the air up there when I went upstate about a month ago. After being home in the city for a while, the air smelled so light, clean. And when I went out on the St. Lawrence and, days later, Lake Ontario? Oh, it just got better.
Oh, der. Upstate. Not the city. I love the smell of the city air, too.
[…] fine addition to the ongoing conversation about the power of scent in travel: Jenna Schnuer’s The Great Scent Escape. “So, perhaps, scent is a secret key back to places we love,” she writes. Tags: […]
[…] fine addition to the ongoing conversation about the power of scent in travel: Jenna Schnuer’s The Great Scent Escape. “So, perhaps, scent is a secret key back to places we love,” she writes. Related […]
[…] is so much more than just … place. It’s food. It’s idiom. It’s smell. And it’s dialect … one of the particular joys of U.S. travel. I remember on my first visit to […]