Becca Miller, The unpopular smell of home

This is a sumset picture from the beach I am writing about. 

            In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman often talked about how smells have a memory attached to them. While reading her examples I found myself thinking about some smells that have a personal meaning to me, whether that be a memory or a feeling of home. What I started to think about is the smell I miss the most while I’m at school and reminds me of home I came up with the smell of low tide aka the sulfur ocean smell you get sometimes at the beach.

When I was in 5^th grade my family moved to Cape Cod from central Massachusetts, and I hated that smell at first. It would fill up the school bus as it would drive me to school or as we passed the marsh on my way to my grandparent’s house. The smell is so strong as I’m writing this I can think back to what it smelt like. As I grew up I found that I missed it when I would go away for vacation. Now that smell means that I am home, or at least really close to home.

When I moved to Wheaton as a freshman I didn’t think much about the absence of the smell. But when I went home over October Break, it was very prominent the closer I got to home. A little known thing is that the beach on Cape Cod is really nice in October. It isn’t as warm but you still get the great views, the water isn’t crazy cold yet, and the best part is that there are almost no tourists covering the sand and clogging the parking lot. Now 4 years later I still wait for the smell of the beach to hit me when I’m driving home for a break or a long weekend. I make a point of going to the beach at least once every time I get home so that I can just take in the smell and feeling the beach before I head back to Norton.

This is for people who need a visual of the Brewster Flats, this is a side picture (you can tell because the wave marks are going in the wrong direction) but it still shows how far out the ocean goes. 

            When I talk to my friends from home they all have had similar experiences where they miss the smell of the salty air and low tide. Especially if they are from my town, as we have what called “The Brewster Flats”, which is basically where the tide goes out wicked far, so there is a strong low tide smell. The funny thing is, lots of tourists come to visit my area every summer, and I work at a popular seafood shack near the beach where once a week, without fail, around low tide there is someone who asks about the awful smell that is wafting over the smell of fried clams. (Sometimes they think it’s our dumpster!) It’s almost as if there is no way to appreciate the low tide smell unless it has true meaning to you, otherwise, it’s just an annoying part of going to the beach in the summer.

            When we were talking in class about smells that we could imagine just by thinking about them, this smells is it for me. This also is a great example for me of how different smells can mean completely different things to other people.

This is an image of the frozen beach just for fun, in case anyone has never seen it, it is pretty cool. The ocean froze because it was so cold for so many days that you can actually walk on it as if its really hard snow, but its actually the ocean. 

**All photos used are my own**