Leaving one’s homeland often results in the abandonment of memories naturally tied to home. The mind in the new land is too immersed in adapting itself to an endless number of unknowns and the unfamiliar. There is a whole new landscape of visual, social, and psychological behaviour to tame one’s heart and mind. The challenge scarcely leaves any room for the memories of the past, which are the only tie to help maintain a lost identity.

The power of scent to evoke memories is well known. An aroma can vividly bring long forgotten memories back to life. The scent of spearmint is very unique to me. I’m interested in how a scent triggers memories and the entire mind can suddenly become occupied with explicit feelings of the past. It is not necessarily the details of a particular scene, but rather the emotional transformation that intrigues me. The intensity of that feeling reminds me how much I have forgotten and how precious it is to remember what has been abandoned for so long.

I believe we feel more lost forgetting where we come from rather than not knowing where we go. A scent can be a pleasant interval between who I have been and who I will become.