Zibaldone 6

Smell demarcates a place because of the way that the smell leaves a very definite image in your mind, even with your eyes closed.  I know that I am on Huntington Ave in Boston because I can smell the burnt rubber from the T and the gasoline left by the cars.  These smells though could mean that I was on most streets in the city, but then as I am walking up towards Mission Hill I smell the pizza from Il Mondos.  The freshly cooked dough smell that comes from the oven and out the open front door.  We know that there are a lot of places with very similar smells, but even then we can still start to smell the slight differences from place to place.  Il Mondos pizza smells like many pizza places, but then there is a little difference that you pick up on.

            Every summer for the 4^th of July my family gathers at our family house in Roxbury, Vermont.  My memories of these weekends are still fresh in my mind because of the smells I associate with them.  The clean fresh air that differs greatly from the dirty and muggy air of the city is the first smell I notice.  The air smells of the pine needles, floral notes from the flowers and trees.  There is the smell of the fires at night or the pizza cooked on the stone oven that is like no other pizza in the world.  The burnt gun powder after all the younger men in the family play with fireworks for an hour.