There’s something funny about how an invisible smell that passes by you brings you back to a moment so specific, the place, the feeling and the version of yourself who was in that moment. We learned in psychology that smell is the only sense that bypasses the brain’s usual filters and goes straight to the limbic system, which is the part responsible for emotion and memory. Maybe that’s why, even now, in mid-July, when I pass by the McCabe Library’s first floor snack bar, I smell the Swiss Miss hot chocolate and suddenly it’s freshman year all over again.
The smell of that powdered chocolate, too sweet, a little artificial, but still so comforting, brings me back to those freezing winter nights right before finals, when the campus had gone so quiet and the world felt like it was just us, McCabe, our laptops, and the snow gently piling up outside. We’d say we were going to “lock in” but we would end up with the most philosophical talks and arguments about whether we have free will and if the outcome of our exam and our futures had already been decided beyond us. And if that were true, we’d ask, what was the point of studying at all? In reality, it was just our brains doing anything to avoid opening another google doc.
Then there’s the Lang music building. That scent, something between old wood, dust, and that faint metallic tang of theater lights, hits me in the chest every time I pass by. It takes me back to those evenings in freshman fall, when my friend Rawasy and I would sneak into a piano practice room late at night. We’d pull up the YouTube tutorial for Futile Devices by Sufjan Stevens and try to follow along, line by line. I’d always say, “You do the right hand, I’ll do the left,” like that would somehow make it easier. I was so bad at first. We’d get through the first two bars, mess up the third, laugh, start over. Again and again.
And then there’s that cold blast of air and sharp-sweet scent from the Sci Cafe fridge when you open it to grab a drink. La Colombe vanilla cold brew, specifically. It reminds me of those early mornings before my Intro to Algorithms class, how I’d rush into the classroom with one earbud in, still half-asleep, the drink sweating in my hand, hoping that the sign-in sheet is still there. It was a little routine, but one that made 08:00 AM classes feel like something I could manage (it was a 09:55 AM class).
The thing is I don’t go looking for these memories, they find me. They show up when I’m just trying to grab a drink or cut across campus, and suddenly I’m back inside a moment I forgot I lived (and loved). Maybe that’s what’s so magical about this place. It keeps pieces of you, tucked in the corners of those buildings, ready to remind you, every now and then, how far you’ve come.
