The smell of home

The smell of home

Last time I mentioned that I´m going to write about  how here in Denmark  I´m surprised by a variety of familiar scents  that remind me of home. These are sort of those moments, when while walking in the town you suddenly feel the smell from the corner bakery and you remember how you and your grandma used to bake the bread on Saturdays, when you were little. Or when  you by surprise find on the bottom of your closet scarf worn by your mother, sniff it and remember that this is exactly how she used to smell.

I have a lot of memories associated with different smells. The way how many things and places smell are in my memory, each of them as a little notch that cannot be ever erased. And one must say that there is already a couple of notches there and that quite often  they suddenly arise as a memory of something that for me is somehow important. And this is what I would like to write about today.

When I lived in Finland, there weren´t as many familiar smells that would catch my nose every now and then. It was different. Many smells were very new, strange, in a way excotic and I had to get used to the fact, that plenty of things smell differently than how I was used to. These new smells I´ll probably remember in various moments in the future and they will always remind me of Finland.

Here in Denmark it´s completely different. From the very first day I´m nicely surprised how „like at home“ it smells here. This feeling follows me everywhere  and I love it. For example already the first evening here, when I opened the window, it was already dark and the fresh scent, the mixture of humid soil, forests and warmness of autumn evening were in the air and came into our living room and I couldn´t get enough of that. It´s that kind of full scent that if you could, you would take a bite of it. In that moment I was taken back to Holubov, to the landscape full of woods and fields, where I grew up and where I love to return. Because exactly like this it smells there when it´s evening.

The following day I went for a run into the near forest. Besides of the great feeling of explorer  when I see places I´ve never been to, I can´t get enough of the lovely homely scents. That day it was warm, sunny, beautiful autumn day ,and immediatelly when I entered the forest, the known smells touched my nose. The smell of fallen leaves bathing in the sun shine. The blanket of autumn leaves so soft, warm and welcoming that I´d like to jump in it and throw the leaves around and then lie for a while and just suck the great scent.  But if I did that, my heart rate would decrease and all my runner´s performance would go in vein. So I just kept imaginating it.                       

Just when I got to the place where the forest ends my attention was taken by another very known smell. Every mushroom picker would appretiate that and would deeply understand what am I talking about. It´s the moment when you almost like a hunting dog spot the smell of mushrooms growing just somewhere near, and you say this loudly, and make sure that your mushrooming mate can smell the same as you.

Almost daily, when I´m on my way back from grocery shopping (it´s a  pretty long way to the local shop), around early evening, the time when people already returned back from work, there it is, the smell sneaking through the partly opened windows. Hmm, I´m thinking, here they are roasting meat, and here, three houses further it smells like apple pie. And so all my way home I spend thinking what do these and the other people cook for dinner. And usually I get a pretty good idea what could I cook that nigt. You must know the feeling when you get taste on spare ribsbecause you smell it from your neighbours garden grill.

Have you ever been thinking about what smeels do you like? What do they mean for you and how did you learn to like them? I think that world without smells, scents, odours or however they are called, the world would be boring and empty.

Wishing you nice evening.

Bodlina