Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it - nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odour - and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnameable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted, by the use of a word; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it all the circumstances of its first perception. This is particularly true when a considerable period of time has elapsed.
Stephen Maturin, from Patrick O'Brien's Post Captain
The space which my colleagues and I share as our office is in a sort of basement. A half basement to be precise. The building itself is old by American standards, and made of all types of brick, stone, concrete and wood. I have been privileged to visit the highest heights of the place - little attics that house forgotten treasures, dust and wires - and the lowest depths - more full of treasures and intrigue, and also of dust and dirt. At its pinnacle, the place give one a thrill like soaring, with broad vistas of buildings and people, and a sense of a sprawling future unfolding before you. In the deeps of its foundations, it proves that hell must be both more terrifying, and more intriguing, and certainly a place that brings out something darker and more personal. The future is bright and shared, the past is dark and private.
I was reminded of this today as I climbed the stairs from our lower level, to the food court above. In doing so, I passed from the heat and humidity of our test lab, to the cooler space of a student lab - nearly empty in the early summer - and on to the stairs which reached ground level in a wholly comfortable, dry, air-conditioned space.
All of these came together at a landing half way up the stairs. A place where these joined: the damp and warm of oppressive summers; the cool and dry of fall nights; the bite of spring rain on warm pavement; dusty and dank concretes from levels well below "basement;" many types of food, cooking in the court above; aging woodwork, smoothed by years and shined by the oil of a million hands.
There were scents from my childhood, from old homes and summer in the yard, and smells from my teenage years, excited with a sense of my own powers. There were scents of college, crazed with sex, booze and every extreme of emotion and expression. There were scents of hopeless times when the sweetest and purest of smells seemed to mock me; and scents of triumphant times, when even smells of garbage and filth were bright reminders of life.
I paused on that landing, and inhaled deeply through my nose, with what I suspect was a somewhat sad smile on my face, as I smelled how irrelevant I am to the greater part of the world; that last smell, the one smell we never sense for ourselves, but have breathed in deep as we send loved ones on their final journey.
A voice pulled me back to this world, this time.
"So'd they get the air on yet?" asked the towering figure half a dozen steps up from me as he paused on his way down.
"If they have," I answered, "it hasn't caught up yet."
The space which my colleagues and I share as our office is in a sort of basement. A half basement to be precise. The building itself is old by American standards, and made of all types of brick, stone, concrete and wood. I have been privileged to visit the highest heights of the place - little attics that house forgotten treasures, dust and wires - and the lowest depths - more full of treasures and intrigue, and also of dust and dirt. At its pinnacle, the place give one a thrill like soaring, with broad vistas of buildings and people, and a sense of a sprawling future unfolding before you. In the deeps of its foundations, it proves that hell must be both more terrifying, and more intriguing, and certainly a place that brings out something darker and more personal. The future is bright and shared, the past is dark and private.
I was reminded of this today as I climbed the stairs from our lower level, to the food court above. In doing so, I passed from the heat and humidity of our test lab, to the cooler space of a student lab - nearly empty in the early summer - and on to the stairs which reached ground level in a wholly comfortable, dry, air-conditioned space.
All of these came together at a landing half way up the stairs. A place where these joined: the damp and warm of oppressive summers; the cool and dry of fall nights; the bite of spring rain on warm pavement; dusty and dank concretes from levels well below "basement;" many types of food, cooking in the court above; aging woodwork, smoothed by years and shined by the oil of a million hands.
There were scents from my childhood, from old homes and summer in the yard, and smells from my teenage years, excited with a sense of my own powers. There were scents of college, crazed with sex, booze and every extreme of emotion and expression. There were scents of hopeless times when the sweetest and purest of smells seemed to mock me; and scents of triumphant times, when even smells of garbage and filth were bright reminders of life.
I paused on that landing, and inhaled deeply through my nose, with what I suspect was a somewhat sad smile on my face, as I smelled how irrelevant I am to the greater part of the world; that last smell, the one smell we never sense for ourselves, but have breathed in deep as we send loved ones on their final journey.
A voice pulled me back to this world, this time.
"So'd they get the air on yet?" asked the towering figure half a dozen steps up from me as he paused on his way down.
"If they have," I answered, "it hasn't caught up yet."
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