Suddenly smelling home

You always hear about visual or hearing hallucinations, but hearing of olfactory hallucinations is unusual.

This is what happened to me today, right in the middle of the day, in the office where the only thing you can really smell is a sweet coffee scent mixed with a hint of M&M's. I smelled incense, and this smell immediately reminded me of home, or I should say the opposite. I recalled home therefore I smelled incense.

Wikipedia dixit: olfactory hallucinations, smelling odors that are not present, can happen in some cases of associative imagination. 

Those of you who believe in divination would say I smelled incense because at home I would have found a tiny roman temple, with candles lit in the living room and incense perfume all around. The simple truth is I smelled incense because I am feeling Easter time is getting closer.

The Incense perfume is for me tightly connected to winter being close at end, and spring getting closer. I know it's quite early to make this connection, especially because half of Europe is covered with snow right now. Somehow though I felt the end of winter nearer and my memory of religious functions prickled my sensitive nostrils. As a result I felt homesick. Easter at home is among my favorite things.

The place where I come from in southern Italy was once ruled by the Bourbons and Aragons and as a result I grew up in a place where the holy week (Settimana Santa) is a big deal. Ceremonies and rites start on the Wednesday before Good Friday, but the entire Lent is full of anticipation for the Good Friday processions and the rites culminating during la Settimana Santa. It's hard to explain what it means to those of you who didn't grow up in similar places. Everything is just so mystical, looking at the community of people respecting traditions going back 500 years ago is just great, and makes you feel connected to the past as well as the future. If you're curious to know more about this, you can wait until I write and shoot a National Geographic photo-report about it (it's one of my dream projects) or you can:

• Have a look at the Flickr slideshow
• Watch a short documentary on YouTube

I won't go back home for Easter. Already missing the smell of incense mixed with early morning sea breeze.