From Essays After Montaigne
The goodly Cities of strangely-seated Venice, and huge-built Paris, by reason of the muddy, sharp, and offending savors which they yeeld; the one by her fennie and marish situation, the other by her durtie uncleannesse and continuall mire, doe greatly alter and diminish the favor which I beare them.
Returning from vacation can be difficult, especially returning from Provincetown. First, there's the simple fact that we're no longer on vacation. We can't loll in bed for as long as we'd like. Breakfast doesn't await us in the dining room, and there aren't any fresh-baked treats in the afternoon. No one is going to come in and make our apartment spotless as soon as we step out for breakfast. Then there are the more specific adjustments to be made when returning to New York from Provincetown. We can no longer step out of the door next to our bed into a garden. There are no golden retrievers wandering about just outside our door. We can't walk down the block to watch the sun set over the ocean. But, finally, the most significant and difficult change is the change in smells.
The smell of people, places, or things is our most elemental experience of them, and our most intimate form of sensory communion. Unlike sight, hearing, or even touch, smelling happens when an emanation--the slightest residue of that which is smelled--actually enters our body. That's why smell has the power to both excite and revolt beyond all of our other senses. And along with our sense of taste (as Proust well knew), it's our most evocative sense. There's nothing, not even time travel, that would bring me more fully back to the exotic, enchanted New York in which I visited my father in the late 1970s and that lies beneath the New York in which I now live than the aroma from a pretzel vendor on a cold day. Likewise, it's by its smells that I know Provincetown most deeply.
I suspect that New York is the greatest city in the world. Woody Allen's films (especially Manhattan and Everyone Says I Love You) make that case in the strongest possible terms. But I believe that a large part of those films' ability to make New York appear so spectacular is based, even beyond the ability to frame out all that's unattractive, on the fact that movies don't convey odors. And as Montaigne noted, the reputations of great cities like Venice and Paris (and probably Rome, London, and many others) aren't the result of their odors. Cities offer many profound experiences that are available nowhere else, but pleasant olfactory experiences aren't always among them. That was made clear to me again yesterday. Over the course of a single day, we drove from Provincetown's country scents (the sandy beech and bayberry scent of the dune forests; the earthy, briny scent of Provincetown harbor at low tide; and the crisp, fresh, doggy scent of Jessye and Potter frolicking in an English garden) to New York's urban scents (bus fumes and other exhaust out in the open; fried food, body odor, inexpertly applied perfume, and halitosis in small spaces; and fermenting garbage and urine here and there). Blindfolded, with my ears stopped, I'd know that I was home.
8:05:52 AM 
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