Memory smells...

Today I am surrounded by memory smell. This is a phenomena that I encounter on a regular basis but not particularly often and it is probably the first time that it has happened since I have moved to Lisbon.

The day is grey and cloudy, as it has been for the better part of the week. There are intermittent spots of rain and the air feels quite heavy. Lisbon is a strange city for this kind of weather, stuck as it is, largely between two hills (the legendary 5 others are a mystery to me) make this atmosphere quite oppressive, as is the whole sky is pressing down on you. To be honest, I really quite enjoy it, I feel more interaction between myself and the environment when the rain is wetting my skin than when the sun is burning it.

But anyway...this kind of weather, that really seems to bring your senses into sharp focus, tend to lead me towards memory smell. This is a scent that I can't get out of my nose, I don't know if it's real or imagined but I like to think of it as an imagined scent from a long past memory. I sometimes get this experience when performing a certain task, reading a certain book or listening to a song, and sometimes it lasts all day. The smell isn't bad but neither is it good in the typical sense, it's not food or flowers or nature, it seems to be a composite that I find amazingly comforting.

I wonder if I'm the only one that has this experience.