Sniff, Memory

[flemmings]

One of those Buddhist self-help books I've been reading all year posed the question 'What is the color of happiness? The sound? The smell? The taste?' Not so easy to answer all of those, but the smell of happiness I knew at once: woodsmoke. My spirits lift automatically whenever I encounter it, which isn't often, air pollution rules being as they are in this town. One reason I stayed as long as I did in Japan, I'm convinced, is because down the street from my dorm was a lumber yard, and the thriftless Japanese don't do whatever we do with scrap lumber-- they burn it. There's woodsmoke in Heiwadai all through the evening, and most afternoons as well.

Here on this calm flat grey Christmas afternoon people are clearly having real wooden log fires, because the empty streets smell of woodsmoke. It reminds me of Sundays in childhood, a fire in the library for the grandparents' visit; it reminds me of Christmas in '85, a similar day and a similar fire, when I was reading Takuboku, so that the peaceful bare Novemberish back garden was overlaid, scrim-like, by a windy April afternoon in Taishou Tokyo; it touches, just, Christmas break in Nakano-ku in 1991, with houses decorated with the New Year's pine and bamboo and the men in one street of that painfully pretentious neighbourhood actually pounding mochi. It is, whatever, a pleasant day, with occasional sunbeams gilding the trees. And I wonder as ever why holidays simply feel more peaceful than even Sundays do. The coffee shops are open-- I just had tea at Starbucks; there are enough people out on Bloor and enough cars on the streets. But still there's a sense of relaxation, of nothing to do and nowhere one need be, and I wish it was more present more days of the year.

Comments

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I wish that peace were more present as well...

Love the images you conjure in this. Reminds me of our old house in Redmond where we had 2 acres of woods and our main heat source was a wood fire, knowing the scent of cedar versus alder (the weed of our woods) or pine. The gas fires here (with very pollutant conscious Boulder) are nothing like...

Thanks for the memories.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. I'm impressed that you can tell various flavours of woodsmoke, but I suppose around here it's mostly pine.

[incandescens]

Merry Christmas. :)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

To you too. Hope it was pleasant.

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me too! I like the smell of woodsmoke as well, although living here, I have learned that it is best not to hang one's blankets outside to air out on the same day the farmers are burning their fields. :/

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful entry. I could almost smell the woodsmoke as I read it.
I'm glad you're having a good holiday. Happy new year (in advance)!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The smell of burning fields is slightly different, yes. They still burn the fields? I thought that was passe in any industrialized nation?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying your time in Delhi. The weather network informs me that it is indeed beautiful there now. I also see that the 'current conditions' in New Delhi is, in a word, 'smoke'. ^_^ Someone else burning fields now?

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

Nope, they still do it. We see 'em doing it in the rice paddies across the road from work. One day a couple years ago, when I didn't know they still burned fields here, I came outside to smoky haze in the air, a strong smell of burning, and cinders on the wind. Nobody seemed concerned, and I was able to ask the landlady about it the next day, and she explained it to me.

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

Everyone! I'd forgotten before I came back, but there are a lot of small fires burning everywhere as people try to keep warm. Plus smog and other pollution. It all looks very picturesque at night if you can forget the battering your lungs are taking with every breath.