Homeward Bound

Home is where the heart is. Home is wherever you lay your head. home is where mom's house is. Home is where you grew up. Home is wherever you end up. Home is where your stuff is.

To me, home is where it SMELLS like home. I know it sounds weird. Home has a smell? Yes, it does. And I haven't smelled it in nigh on 10 years now.

What does home smell like? I really couldn't tell you. I don't have words to describe it because it doesn't smell like anything else. It just smells like home.

If I haven't smelled it in 10 years, how will I know it when/if I find it again? I don't know, I just will.

Smell is linked to memory in the most profound way. I remember what home smells like, like I remember someone's cologne. And just as when I smell that particular cologne and I remember that specific person, so it will be when I smell home again. My memories will come flooding back.

I've called many places home over the past 10 years. But only one has come close to my olfactory memory. I have lived in 7 different apartments in the past 10 years. All of them had a particular scent.

There was the first one. The two bedroom with hardwood floors and that bathroom so small you could take a leak, wash your hands and shave your legs in the tub all at the same time. (Can't say I ever did that though.) It was on the seedy West side, a block or so from a strip joint and behind one of those little Asian markets which contained untold wonders inside. It smelled like stale cigarettes and age. I moved to the apartment next door after a little while. It was cheaper, being a one bedroom. There was a leak in the ceiling inside one of the kitchen cabinets. Water from the apartment upstairs would trickle through a leaking pipe, filter down through layers of insulation and most likely asbestos to be collected in a little bucket and disposed of daily. Because of this the whole place had this sticky-sweet scent, musty and damp, and utterly gross. There was also a mouse, which lived quiet happily thanks to my ineffectual cat.

Apartment number three was down right rank. My aging dog who ate anything you happened to leave lying around (including pop cans, I think she thought she was goat trapped in a dog's body) was responsible for that. Fourteen year old dogs have the bladder and bowel control of new puppies, without the cuteness. I did my best, but it was quite rank.

After a few months of that and the inevitable death of my beloved childhood pet, I moved into a small one bedroom basement apartment. Small is an understatement really. My friends on the taller side of the spectrum had to duck in many places and my boyfriend couldn't stand upright in the shower.

After the little dungeon, I moved into the tower. I took the loft bedroom on the 3rd floor of a duplex which my FakeBro and his wife lived in. They were having money issues and had the extra space so I moved in to help them out. Me and my 4 cats. Living with their 3 cats, 1 dog and various other caged animals. My room did not smell good. 'Nuff said.

The tower made way to the walk-up. A very tiny 2 bedroom on the 3rd floor of a 100 year old building...with my boyfriend at the time. Who had a lot of stuff so I had to get rid of mine of course. That one smelled of food, all the time. Which was my fault of course cause I was cooking constantly (I was in culinary school at the time.) That place smelled awesome! But not like home.

The latest place I call home smells pretty good most of the time. I share a 3 bedroom house with my GirlRoomie and her boyfriend. My room smells like sandalwood, cause I burn the stuff all the time. The kitchen area generally smells like whatever vegetarian mush the Roomies are cooking (or had cooked 3 days ago and left out on the counter, yeah, they're slobs.) It's not tooo bad, but still not a winner.

The only one that came close was the tiny basement apartment. I was there for quite a while and though it was small, it was cozy.

It invariably reeked of me.