Peter Maybarduk

Home is a Scent

July 7, 2008

Jessica Lehman was right.  A friend and former Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, she told me I should breathe deep with my first step off the plane in Freetown.  My first memory would be the scent.  

Indeed.  Almost 17 years later, moist, red earth, lush foliage in the rivers and seas hosting a humid city make up a particular, subtle, but unmistakable fragrance.  And for my first several days in Freetown, smells are my most powerful sensory experiences.  I take in bright aromatic flowers we once grew in our yard, and the still-difficult sour fetor of the fish market.     

I find it harder to put words to scents; I feel we process them at a near subconscious level.  The connection between verbal communication and sight is much stronger, but scent sometimes exerts a stronger influence on our behavior, without our full understanding.  It is a critical part of attraction between people, and reinforces boundaries, even to the point of revulsion, between cultures.  It tells us whether we are uncomfortable or at ease.  And it can signal an arrival home.