The Smells of Fall

Although the first day of fall was on September 23 this year, I didn't notice it was fall until last night. Why? Well, it didn't smell like fall.

Here in Portland, there's a particular smell I associate with the onset of fall -- the smell of people's first fireplace fires of the year. And somehow, last night everybody in my neighborhood got the memo and lit up. You can tell it's the first fireplace fire in a long time, because there's a weird wet twinge to the smoky odor (presumably there's special stuff in the chimney that's been accumulating all year). This smell means to me: time to figure out how many vacation days I have left.

I spent most of my childhood in Florida, where there was no distinctive smell to mark the coming of fall. The only thing I'd notice was that it got dark a little earlier, and I'd feel weird about it being 95 degrees on Halloween night. Truly unfortunate.

I do remember a fall smell from my year living in Philadelphia as a young child. There, I knew it was fall (okay, almost winter) when I'd smell the rotting Ginkgo leaves -- a distinctive stink that was great fun to complain about, for a good three weeks each year.

So here I am, enjoying the onset of fall. Pretty soon it'll be time for the smells of winter (for me, this involves paperwhite narcissus flowers). But for now, boy does that chimney smoke smell nice. But what about you -- what smells mean it's fall for you?

(Photo courtesy of Flickr user Al-Ansari.)