Smells

I read a book recently where someone described the smell of a city. And it broke from anything expected as the author described it as floral honeysuckle and cedar wood and the smell of roasting cashews. Found it quite lovely and unique.

I don't want to speculate on the smell of any city I have lived in as I would feel phony. I lack authority to take it anywhere beyond the hackneyed. Cleveland is old smokestacks. Ithaca is tacky sticky marijuana with crushed oak leaves. I have little clue for San Juan as its centers are so scattered. The old city that smells of heat bouncing off cobblestones and salt spray. The high rise mile of finance that smells like the fry traps of Chinese restaurants. 

A digital place like Twitter would smell like animal shelter. That sharp nose slamming smell that indicates someone has been running around cleaning but the mess keeps piling up. It is pervasive and permeating. I mention this because I saw a RT where someone asked that. Someone with millions of readers and the most common response was a public restroom. But that is very abstract. This blog

I have a feeling on how certain specific places smell. My workplace in the winter smells like the wispy dust the lingers in the sunlight. It is tired and salty yet clear and subtle. This is also the smell of Central New York house for rent. It lingers in mud room vestibules cluttered with winter boots and three separate snow shovels.

My old job had airport parking lot smell. That is also salty but with hits of diesel fuel and engine exhaust. Note I did not work at an airport but in warehouse so there was also a living smell of rock doves in the rafters. The wispy husks of cardboard that smell of light friction.

The water in the gutters by my aunt's house in Mayaguez smell like wet dust and that fish tank smell of moving living systems gurgling.

My current office smells like little much save the musty sharpness of toner and whatever lotion someone has on. My space in it is likely petrified coffee shellacked into rings on the compressed cardboard.