Where Am I? Always at Home, Never Quite There
When you open the bedroom window on a fine May morning in Southern Norway, your senses will be overwhelmed by a strong blend of freshly cut grass and cow manure. That sweet-sour wave hitting your olfactory system throws you back into a faint childhood memory, with its pastures and free-roaming cattle, the pigs and chickens in the backyard, the sound of adults chitchatting about the daily chores. A random Saturday morning, when you were allowed to sleep in and daydream about the impending summer holiday. Here, the fields and pastures are at a distance, but the fragrance of fertilizers and the buzzing of lawnmowers are near, slowly awakening you. Smell and memory are adjacent in the brain's anatomy, so this involuntary trip down memory lane should not be surprising. You close your eyes and suddenly you are back to another summer day, when you were laying in the grass in your grandmother's vegetable garden, waiting for the grown-ups to finish planting corn, row by row, so that...