by Georgina Gamble ’29 on October 8, 2026
Opinion
I miss the smell of my childhood home.
Sometimes I will catch a whiff of an autumnal aroma that brings me back to my old living room. Any candle with cinnamon, clove, and pumpkin in the mix was immediately bought by my mother and lit during the fall months. That, combined with the strong scent of a cinnamon broomstick, would always greet me as I came home from school. The light breeze carried in some crunchy leaves underneath my tiny feet, getting inevitably stuck in the small fibers of the welcome mat.
I don’t only yearn for my childhood home in the cooler months, although I can distinctly remember the smell of my kitchen during December. Oddly, the warm smell of the singular shot of whiskey required in struffoli dough is the most memorable part of Christmas to me. I can imagine the mess of flour on the countertop as my grandma and I work on mixing the dough with our hands, fully embracing the delicious whiskey-and-vanilla aroma. I can smell, not so faintly, the lemon-scented Endust my mom sprays as she works to clean up around our baking. No perfume will ever be as appealing to me as that combination.
I remember waking up in my teal-colored bedroom to the sound of the lawnmower and the smell of freshly cut grass on hot July days. My window was left open just enough to let in a cool, sweet, summer breeze. I miss wandering around my front yard collecting flowers and branches to build a fairy house, the dirt smelling strongly of the rain we had the night before. If I were lucky enough, when evening came, my mom would have me assist her in cutting lilacs from our garden. That was the sweetest smell of summer, the fresh and soft notes of the flowers that generously grew in our yard.
I cling to these faint memories of my early years. In my head, these recollections play out like an old film reel: grainy and overexposed, but vibrant. In my dreams, I typically find myself in some version of this house. Who knew that four walls and a roof could have such an impact on a person?
They say that smell is the sense that is most strongly connected to nostalgia. I believe it to be true, because the wistfulness I feel when I catch a hint of something slightly reminiscent of my adolescence is unmatched. I hope that this feeling will never crush me, although it sometimes brings a tear to my eye. I wish it would push me to make the most of every home, every dorm, and every space I take up. I aspire for the affections I have for fuzzy memories to become the ultimate comforts, like my favorite childhood stuffed animal, in the memory boxes of my mind.