#Microblog Monday 521: The Scent of a Space
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You can take a photograph and remember how something looked. You can make a recording and remember how something sounded. But you can’t capture a scent.
The moment I stepped out of the Tube in South Kensington, I smelled the air, a permanent mixture of diesel, burnt sugar, and petrichor. It smells the same in every season, and I always forget how it smells days after we get back until I get to breathe it in again.
It’s not a good scent. It’s not baking bread or coffee or soap. But it’s this scent that anchors me to a place. And I wish there was a way to capture a smell like you do a photo or a recording and return to it when you’re far away.
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3 comments
LOL… I have often joked about “Eau de TTC” — the unique scent in the Toronto subway system, particularly in the oldest stations!
And every time I smell coffee brewing, I’m back in my grandmother’s kitchen. She always had a pot of Folgers percolating on the stove (and often some baking to go along with it).
I misread the title, but it’s still relevant. My friend brought me a bottle of something that’s supposed to smell like space. We haven’t actually gotten around to opening it yet – she had already smelled it, and she said it was gross. So maybe someone with knowledge of scent chemistry could recreate a scent for you.
Very late to this – I didn’t realise you were back! I 100% agree. The smell of walking outside at Auckland airport was always the smell of coming home for me in my international travel work years. Likewise, the smell of fumes takes me back to Bangkok. And when we were travelling last year (can’t remember if in London or Portugal), I smelt the putrid odour of a stagnant canal in Bangkok too. Jasmine and lemongrass also take me back to Bangkok, so it’s not all bad!