new old smells

i moved to toronto, which is near where i grew up, and there are smells here that flatten me with recognition and, i have to admit, revulsion. ok not revulsion.

one smell in particular is exactly the smell of the day care i went to called chalmer's green tot lot.* "the tot lot." "time to go to the tot lot." one year when i thought i was too old to be going to the tot lot i believe i was given the impression that i wasn't one of the tots but was somehow working there, supervising the tots, on a voluntary basis. anyway that place had a very specific smell of some kind of cooking covered up with a limey cleaning product. the back of the house i live in now smells like that.

part of moving is always taking stock of one's possessions, and i wound up consolidating my perfume samples--there are a lot of them. enough that i could smell different every day for a few months. i sprayed myself with serge lutens un bois vanille to go out to dinner with a friend from childhood. the funny thing is that the heart of that perfume is cuminy and waxy like the tot lot smell. it felt good to smell like that walking through watery summer night air in this grubby city that is so much my home.

*canadians have a knack for giving all kinds of things, institutions, stores, businesses, bands, the stupidest possible names. names, furthermore, that emphasize the silliest sounds of the canadian accent. if you know a canadian with an accent, have them say "tot lot."

now i want to wear my prada all the time. it is perfect for my reinvention as a canadian graduate student. it smells like ambery dry leaves.