Smell

Long story short, I went three weeks in India without my luggage. My bag got held up in customs in Mumbai. Last weekend I flew to Hyderabad (and there’s another long story) to - at last! - retrieve my bag. When I got back to Vizag I dumped the contents of the bag, a big read hiking pack, on my bed. The first thing I noticed was the smell. My smell. Things are things, and I never wanted for clothes or books or soap. But when I smelled my stuff, I realized what I had been missing. Some part of my sense of self is bound up in these things, and to wash my face with my soap, and to put my lotion on my hands was to wrap my self in the familiar. Smelling those things brought back to me little pieces of who I was, which is a great comfort being so far away from so many of the places, people and things which make me who I am.

Whenever I smell fish, fresh fish, I remember Viet Nam and the parts of me that were made there. I wonder what bits of me are being made here, and what smells will help to carry them with me.