The things you learn about yourself: at home with me in Rennes

When I got off the plane in January in Paris, the first vocab words I missed were ones for smells. Wet pavement mixed with special car exhaust...very strong. I asked "how do you say smell?" but the question isn't that simple. Do you just smell something-- sense it's existence-- or does it reek, is it wonderful, is it frightening? I had no idea this mattered to me that much.  In English, "smell" frequently has a bad connotation. I don't know about French. I've learned " Ça pue" that reeks... and "ahhh ça sent bon" that smells good (what I say at dinner time). However I still feel very uncertain when I want to specify:  "the room smells close" " my tape player in phonetics class smells hot"  " the middle schoolers I work with reek"" the smell of beer" " France smells of urine," " I smell smoke"  " Lucie's famous 1.5 hour cauliflower boil..."  " the kitchen smells disgusting" " I love the scent of these mysterious and romantic flowers" " Froufrou smells absolutely vile and the guinea pig has his ripe moments" " the pong of lice shampoo: at the swimming pool today I KNEW the little boys had used my towel because the "éloigne-poux" ( put distance between you and the lice) shampoo overpowered the chlorine" " the little boys' socks" " the Camembert in the frigo" " the dishwasher whose aroma they keep in control by shutting the kitchen door at all times"  "my clothes when I finally got them clean for the first time in 4 months" " my clothes before I got them clean"  " the manure spreader outside of Rennes" " après fish market" " outside the bakery" " riding the bike 4 feet behind the city bus." " different tobacco brands…"

Before I started to speak another language, I had no idea I thought about or talked about smells so much. With my semi-conscience thoughts now on public display, I sound obsessive:  " how would you describe this scent?" " Do you smell that?" and no one does. I just got hit with the smell of Lucie burning the bottom of her cake which is definitely still wiggly in the middle-- her oven runs hot and her stove runs on gas. Occasionally the smell of gas fills the first floor and I go running into the kitchen hoping the friction from my socks doesn't spark and set the house on fire. The fireplace too has its own special scent: creosote and sometimes the smells of things that shouldn't be burned. Lucie cleaned the house this week and waxed the floors. You betcha I stopped short each time I entered the house to the scent of a new cleaning product. See how much you learn about the world when you breathe deeply? Are you safe? Do you need to fix something? Run away? Put out your flaming sock? Come to a standstill and enjoy? Do you know Rennes better after reading my smell list? I think those scents will remind me of my time here for the rest of my life. Some of them are universal and others are particular.   My host brother and I were looking at American money tonight and my hands did not smell like Euros; they smelled like the Dollar and it was shocking. Soon not only will the scent of American money be so familiar as to be dulled into nothing, but I will have to fit the elongated bills into my wallet once again. No more cheery jingling change burning a hole in my pocket (nothing spends like a 2 euro coin), no more over-cooked cauliflower perfuming my scarves for weeks to come, no more 500 year old church smell, no more bakery and no more Thursday night metro pong though I should get to Vermont about the time the flower scent really starts to hit the way it has here.  And what about awareness? Is smell part of my active thoughts 24-7 because everything is still so new here, or has it risen to the surface because I cannot describe something I took for granted at home? Will my sense of smell dull once I start running up and down Poker Hill rd past the cow barn where I have been running for 20 years ? In that vein, does France smell more than America or is it the newness that smells? Is it psychological?  Do I smell because I am anxious: the house will burn down, I will asphyxiate in my phonetics lab, I will get lice, that French laundry detergent I added to my bleach was actually ammonia, my dinner will burn in the funny Celsius oven. Remember I do have to eat that cauliflower and let’s not talk about that microwaved frozen zucchini releasing its particulates into the atmosphere… 
Whatever the reason why, smell and you put yourself in time and space and place. I am here in Rennes and it is springtime; we are having cauliflower purée for dinner and burned cake for desert; I am going to open the window so I don't choke on the smell of floor wax and then I am going to fumigate my towel. Smell and realize your brain is wondrous made: I am going to save myself from immanent danger, I am storing memories. Smell, and even though you are tongue-tied and helpless, this very fact brings something to mind. It sears the inside of my brain: perhaps it is something that the person who can say it in words will never even know to express.

Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Pond-side in Rennes is exactly like this painting


Today Lucie announced that we were going picnicking at a lake on the outskirts of Rennes. We took our bicycles to get there and I discovered the famous main-drag canal which has been eluding me lo these many months. We biked along through the greenery and the violent yellow mustard fields past the soccer stadium and out of town. Because I don't speak French very well, my littlest host brother thinks I am about two and takes care of me. He told me each time we started up a hill that I would need to pedal harder and then when we stopped he taught me how to lock up my bike. When I was safely installed on my beach towel, he went to join his brother in the water. With regards to the water,
"she is good," and "she does not have cold." She did smell pretty rank, but I said nothing. They submerged themselves alongside a puppy whose owner was asked by a lady on shore if she gave her dog swimming lessons or if it had learned itself...
The family on the blanket next to us was having a bit of a commotion. One girl had forgotten her bathing suit and decided to swim in her bra. However, her mother was afraid she would get burned and made her wear a shirt with it. This seemed decidedly unfair to the girl in question because as I noticed when I opened my eyes after my nap, every other woman in the group was sitting around casually topless eating lunch in the manner that Americans stereotype the French. I heard that was demoded, but apparently not. The girl protested loudly, but was forced into a shirt. Her boyfriend was there eating lunch with the family and I wonder if she was embarrassed. He faced the lake away from the scene and he and shirt girl hurried away to bury each other in the sand and play soccer. The family remained and after four hours they were all the color of lobsters. How could you eat triple cream cheese and chips naked and in public? They weren't the only ones. I was probably wearing the most clothes on the beach aside from the Turkish ladies who had the tastiest looking picnic ever: kabobs in a huge round bowl and three baguettes crammed into a baby carriage.
After I got tired of laying around and being stared at for wearing clothes, I decided to walk around the pound and find out where the bagpipe noises were coming from. A long ways away, a lone man in a kilt was practicing in the shade of a tree. Everyone walking by was giving him the eye. I'll give him credit for actually being pretty good. I suspect that the guy who plays bagpipes each Saturday at the market has been clandestinely hired to improve pedestrian circulation; he is tortuously out of tune. Our pond piper was spot on. Just around the bend from all this were the model boat guys. This is only an occupation for middle aged men. I am not sure why. They stand on shore in wading boots, tensed and concentrated; their boats sail in formation and their pot bellies are surprisingly coordinated too. A little ways off two other "modelistes" sat aloof. They were outfitted in matching British khaki, boots and smart caps. I worried that when I walked by I disrupted their radio transmission. I hope that their fancy matching outfits were specially intended for afternoons with the model yacht. How bizarre.
After the unsupervised teenaged boys with rouge soccer balls, ciggerettes, hooka and foul mouths got to be too much on the beach, I left on a bike ride in the land of cows outside of Rennes. Super green and lots of manure. It is funny how there are petite villages scattered around the city which seem to be in the middle of nowhere, but have bus service to Rennes and are really only about 5 miles out. It is like being in a different world.