Splash, the essence of my life

I, like all people, am attentive to smells. We live among magnificent scents that envelop our lives from the first moment of awareness and accompany it at every step. Many of those fantastic scents, like the exact smell of our mothers' beds, are lost in time and we can no longer recover them. But there are eternal fragrances that envelop entire cities, like the green and blue, fresh and rancid at the same time, smell of the sea.

For those who have grown up by the ocean, the smell of the sea is also a sound, a lullaby, a lullaby that always accompanies us and calls to us, even in the distance.

I was born in the capital of my country, where the sea is two hours away, but I came to this city that I call my city, my marine city, at a very early age. When I grew up I got into the habit of silently comparing the smells, the colors and the people of my city with those of any other place I visited.

Once, I moved away from my sea town, I went to live in a very cold country. I left behind my mother's house, with its courtyard smelling of lemons, mint and roses. In my new house - a beautiful house identified with the number one, on the right side of an old arch that gave entrance to the main street of the town - the smells were different. When I arrived there, the house smelled of a combination of apples, plums and pine.

The stay in that house was quite personally enriching, from there I traveled to the capital three times a week to study the language at the University of Vienna. During the years I lived there I learned to notice the variation of smells in each season. In autumn I was confronted with the smell of wood, of smoke from the chimneys. A smell of dry leaves, similar to the delicious perfume of old books. In winter the bakeries smell of cinnamon, cloves, chocolate, from the streets emanates an attractive smell of roasted chestnuts. In spring the sense of smell sharpens but has a strong contender in the sense of sight. No sooner had I stepped off the south station train than I was hit by the smells of the flowers that fill the air in all directions in Vienna. I smelled the versatile scent of geraniums mingling with the clear sweet and playful scent of violets but in general what completely describes spring is the word potpourri. Summer would bring one of my favorite smells in the world. The smell of people.

I said before that this stay was very profitable for me. I studied, I traveled, I assimilated... I learned to look at myself from other concepts, from other perspectives. Everything was in order. But inside me a voice began to call me. Nostalgia came.

One early spring day, a ray of light came through the living room window and slipped through the curtains, drawing itself on the parquet floor. I felt that triangle of light as an invitation. I was alone at home on the second floor. Then I undressed and lay down on that sunbeam. There my mother-in-law found me fast asleep an hour later. I woke up and to the mute question in her eyes I only said:

"I miss the sun of my city very much and above all I miss the sea very much."

Those were my most heartfelt needs, I didn't miss my parents so much, nor my siblings, nor my friends. I missed my sea city.

To better use this space of memory I must say that in all that time I only offered a hug to a friend who was going through a bad time. She accepted the hug and cried hard on my shoulder. At that moment, as I touched her hair, it dawned on me that in all the time I had been living there in that beautiful part of the world I had only received hugs from my husband. The realization hit me hard. That day I decided that I would return to my sea town, where people have the habit of hugging a lot.

We returned. Life has continued, with its arbitrary rhythm, with its ups and downs.

In the last few years my whole country has experienced a cataclysm. I continue here in my marine city, wrapped in its perfume.

When the heat becomes unbearable or when I need a little calm, I go into the sea. He always greets me. Sometimes he throws himself on me like in an embrace.
I feel his unmistakable scent and that's enough.