The noise and the smell

- There's always something you've forgotten.
  Always.
  You think you remind all but no.
  There's always something you recall, when the first days you're coming back home after a long time.
  Or maybe, it is just because you see things differently. All this time spent far away changed you.



When I came back from Chile, I was astonished by the number of cars in the highway,  by the number of lanes of the highways, by the greatness of the airport parking lot, and by the clean majesty of the grocery stores. But, I get really stocked by the gigantic choice of cooked pork meats and cheeses.
I shout loud, almost crying of joy, "Oh my god, this cheese tastes so good" when I get to take a sample in a counter.

I used to skip cheese, in family meals. Always.
Cheese and salad.
It was not a fun part. It was a useless part, something made to fill your stomach just before the dessert. No way I was going to miss the dessert because I ate too much of cheese.
It was my child rebellion against french gastronomy. Skip the cheese. eat more sweets !

And, then I went to Chile.
9 months of so few choice of non-tasty cheeses. I could not imagine I would miss it. I always skipped it.
But, somehow I did. Chile changed me, it made me love the cheese.

I could not imagine I would miss the smells coz I never realized there were smells.


Grenoble, July 9th
I step off of the train. F. is hosting me that night. We're walking together to his apartment. He lives close, in the "alternative" neighborhood of Grenoble. Some kind of odd mix of Maghreb culture and anarchists lesbians in old industrial buildings.

I am watching and not saying a word. Just watching. And listening. And smelling.
The smells I did not smell during 9 months.
Smells of oil, sweat, food, all mixed and heated together by the 100°F summer oven.
It smells like people running, people drinking tea, people talking, people driving, people cooking.



In 1991, there was a French president who had been treated badly because he disregarded immigrants living in social housing. He said "the noise and the smell".
Zebda made it a song.
Noises and smells of the populace. So many people living together in a such small place.
I was not in a rich suburb but almost downtown, not the poorest neighborhood also.
But the US changed me. It made me forget the smells of the people living together.
It replaced it by sea air and weeds smoke. Some kind of mix between the sterilized bobo and iodized hippie ways of life. Smells of people living side by side.