The smell of home

It’s this smell. It’s a mix of the warmth of a fire burning in the chimney of the house we used to have in Nantes, of winter walks when I used to follow my parents around with my small blue bike, something that feels like winter break, hot chocolate, Christmas hats, and the magic of the lights from the decorations seen through my dad’s car window. It strikes me sometimes, but it gets rarer throughout the years, when I cross the street on an ordinary glacial afternoon.

When I am lucky enough to smell it again, it always feels like a surprise. My pace slows down, I find myself staring at everything that surrounds me, and I feel this delicate, warm spike in my stomach. I think that’s what surprises me every single time: how it affects not only my mind and thoughts, but my whole body and heart. This may be what people usually call a feeling of belonging, I imagine.

The thing with this smell is that I always get the same feeling of a deep sense of loss and emptiness when it goes away as fast as it came. The moment I catch it and start wandering in my memory, it slips away. And I never get used to this feeling of deep frustration and deception that comes with it. But I guess every positive aspect comes with downsides.

I catch myself sometimes, when I get emotional, trying to find it again. Hopelessly trying to catch it, wandering in the city or in the countryside, searching for this unique feeling this smell gives me. But I know I won’t find it. I just know. I cannot recreate it. It simply appears to me. And it’s not only Christmas — it’s winter. It’s linked to the season. Or to the cold slowly eating my bones when I drive or walk for too long in the unforgettable weather of winter. Or maybe it is the steam coming out of the chimneys of the houses and buildings I stare at when I travel across town on the subway.

I remember finding it once when I was walking with my family through the woods. I always cherish it when it happens. But somehow, I have this frustrating feeling attached to it. Because it’s always when I get to feel a glimpse of nostalgia thanks to the smell that it suddenly goes away. As if it were never there. As if I were just searching for something to hold on to desperately. As if I needed to cling to that tiny little rope which linked me, in some way, to my childhood.

I cannot remember where or when the smell appeared to me for the first time. Yet, I seem to associate it with this house in the countryside we had when we lived in Nantes. That’s the house my little brother was born in. It was a huge house, with an entire floor dedicated only to our children’s bedrooms. Mine was enormous, and way too big for a nine-year-old, if you want my opinion. It had a beautiful chimney, and somehow the place always seemed to be bathed in the light of the sunrise. That gave it such a spirit.

I keep walking down the streets some days, hoping to find it along my path. I stare at the same steam and cross the same crosswalks. However, the smell doesn’t find me. I try to recall those same times, the elements it brings, but nothing is here. Sometimes I even try to think about the other houses we had, the ones that were big and beautiful, charming even. But they don’t feel like the smell. They don’t feel like much, really.

I think I’ve never found such a warm home since then. That one was special. For some reason. Still unknown to me, to be totally honest. Because I don’t remember special times there, or specific events that could have made me love this house so much. I guess sometimes you get attached to things or people simply because they are exactly what they were expected to be. And that house — that house was a home.