Smells can really trigger strong memories. Occasionally I’ll catch a wiff of something and it will instantly take me back 30 years to a very specific time and place. Sometime, I’ll smell the perfume my mom used to wear and a flood of memories will instantly come back to me. It’s quite an experience.
Wow, that was a little of track from how I thought this would go. A couple of days ago while riding to work in the morning I was really hit by how much closer to life you are on a bike vs. a car when moving around the city and it was the smells on the ride that gave me this thought. As I went up the street there was a freshness in the air, a smell that would be hard to describe, a spring quality. To me it was as if I could smell the “green” of the grass.
Well, at the top of the street the relaxing and refreshing scent of spring was quickly swept away by a VW TDI diesel exhaust stream. We’ve been looking at a new vehicle and the TDI has caught my attention mainly because of it’s incredible mileage, but I’d forgotten about the exhaust and diesel smell and the clanking of the engine. This car was almost out of site and I was still sucking in the fumes.
From there it was back into a brief reprieve of fresh air on a bike path and then into the fragrant mix of heavy rush hour traffic downtown. Actually, this is the most fun part of the ride as I get to pass most of the cars, weave in and out of traffic and try not to get hit or be too obnoxious, but it is a bit of a rush. I’m certainly awake when I roll into the office.