Smells Like Vacation

Man Mo Temple, Hong Kong

The description of my blog reads as follows: “Leading a healthy lifestyle while vagabonding around the world.” As I know many of my readers are devoted travelers like myself, I kind of wanted to talk about a different kind of trip. When you don’t have a physical trip planned for the near future…then take a trip down memory lane! Smells can trigger very strong memories and emotions. Is this a bit too hippie for you guys? Maybe, but let’s face it, I am a little bit hippie…I also love nice smelly things. Perfumes, candles, incense…you name it. Maybe that does not make me a hippie, but in fact a materialist? Hm…not too comfortable with that label. But it’s a known fact among my loved ones that I love “smelly stuff.” I can’t tell you how many times my parents have asked me, when I am staying in my old room in their house: “Do you have anything burning in your room?” “Do you need to blow out anything before we leave the house?” I believe pleasant smells can make us feel good. It’s also a nice way to make a maybe crappy small apartment seem a little bit glam. Because have I lived in my fair share of those? Yes I have. I mean not now, now I live in a Tower, but before, you betcha. Many of my dearest memories attached to smells are travel related. So here is a trip down memory lane “smelly style”:

Let's start in present time though: We just experienced yet another Christmas and the holiday season is just an explosion of smells! Common smells in a Swedish household during that time of the year is of gingerbread, mulled wine, oranges with dried up carnations stuck in them, candles…my sister Ida and I burn a lot of candles in our Tower. One single candle, of good quality, makes the whole space very nicely scented. We also made it smell very woodsy the other day when we kept on burning our hands using a cigarette lighter to light candles. We started setting fire on a thin, long wood stick and then lighting the actual candle. When blowing out the stick, we created a smell of camp fire. We loved it! And yes, we were careful.

Okay, back to scents that can trigger memories. A spice such as cinnamon makes me think of many trips actually. Both to the Dominican Republic, as they used it in many dishes there, and also to a café called "Toppstugan.” “Toppstugan” is located on top of a mountain in the town of Orsa, Sweden where we used to go skiing every year when I was growing up. The staff at "Toppstugan" made the most delicious cinnamon rolls in the world. When I think back and envision the baked goods, they are large, freshly baked and just heavenly. Well, they may just be ordinary, but good, cinnamon rolls. To be fair, I used to consume them after spending hours going up and down the slopes so my memory may be a bit skewed. Anyhow, cinnamon triggers both memories of tropical beaches as well as frosty surroundings in the Northern Kingdom. Weird, huh? And speaking of the North, crisp cold air with a hint of fire also brings back memories of past ski trips. Serenity at its finest.

The smell of jasmine is something I will always attach to the fall of 2014. The smell of real jasmine flowers was something I experienced both in Thailand and in Argentina. I even bought jasmine perfume and jasmine tea in Bangkok. And speaking of Thailand, walking the streets of Bangkok offered a myriad of exciting smells, one of the “smelliest” (and I mean this in a very loving and positive way!) places I have been too. Sensory overload! Another flower that triggers memories for me is lavender. I love using lavender for restful moments. I also have some travel memories attached to the smell of lavender. I have stayed with friends in the USA who had pillow spray with lavender scent and it helped me drift away in deep sleep. I have visited friends who have had dried lavender flowers hung up in their apartment to make it smell nice. My hope/ambition/goal is to visit the beautiful lavender fields in Provence, France and gain more memories that way.

Perfumes? Oh perfumes! “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future” said Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. I don’t know about that, but just in case, I wear it daily. My signature scent is “Light Blue” from Dolce and Gabbana. I think I have worn that scent for the past 12 years. So much so that one of my darling triplets often say when I hug her: “You smell just like you. You smell like my childhood.” Of course I play around with other scents from time to time too. But “Light Blue” is what I usually go back to. Certain perfumes remind me of people in my life. Sometimes I take a sniff at a certain perfume or cologne at the duty free shop at airports during long layovers and let memories wash over me. Creepy? Yes a bit, but what are you going to do when you have 5 hours to kill? A trip down memory lane will make time go faster until your actual trip.

As a yogini, I use incense and chakra spray for yoga sessions. Not always, but I do enjoy it from time to time. Certain incense scents can ignite a memory of a past yoga session, especially if the session was exceptionally good. And incense, I remember one of the first times I went into a temple, it was in Hong Kong and the temple was called “Man Mo.”The temple was a place for worship of the literature god Man and the martial god Mo. The air was thick with incense and I absolutely LOVED it! For a little Northern European Viking Princess, this experience was so exotic! I felt so alive.

The one smell that probably triggers my “vacation mode button” the most is the scent of suntan lotion, especially if it smells of coconut. Not that I am a Hawaiian Tropic girl in any sense of that word, but still, suntan lotion equals vacation for me. Generally the scent sends me back to memories of a beach, for obvious reasons, but I also have a distinct memory of the smell connected to a hike around the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was a bit weird for me to smell this everyday when I lived in Sydney. I LIVED there; I was not on a holiday. Yet I kind of felt like I was since every day I put suntan lotion on my face and body. The sun's rays are rather strong over Oz and as a precaution I slathered lotion on myself. And speaking of Australia and suntan lotion…I will always remember my time at Coogee Beach House, a hostel right by the beach outside Sydney. The little, lovely hostel smelled of suntan lotion, surf wax and sand. Oh memories!

I guess by rambling about some smells that evoke memories in me, I just want to show how important smells are. So my point is, use scents to make you feel good. Use them on your persona and also around you, in your home etc. And of course try to stay away from smells which evoke bad memories. For me, a certain perfume that a lady wore sitting behind me when I saw the scary movie “Scream” in the theaters years and years ago will always send shivers down my spine when I smell it. I can’t think of the name of the perfume right now, but if I smell it, boy does it evoke memories of people getting slashed to pieces by a mask clad youngling. Another smell that is oh so familiar, but not my favorite, is of cow manure. The farmers in my hometown of Laholm use it sometimes to make their crop grow. I know it’s probably the healthiest and most organic "product" one can put on the land, but still. Cow manure is not my forte. Make yourself a library, a collection of some sort, of various smells that evoke happy memories. This library can be good to use when modern day life stressors set in. And if you need more scents, talk a walk in your neighborhood or book a trip. Nice smells are everywhere. We just need to stop and smell the roses. Such as cliché, I know, but seriously, smell the roses :)