When I was young, every summer in August, my family and I would leave the city and spend a month in the small village of Mira to take part in the lavender harvest.

Every house in the village was painted white with a limewash to keep the interiors cool and provide protection from the hot summer sun. But I remember, in August, when I was there, I’d see older women repainting the base of their houses so that the dogs and cats didn’t urinate on the house. That sharp, disinfecting, penetrating smell kept the animals away.

We were city people who lived very differently when we were in the village. The house that my father owned in the village had a horse stable on the ground floor, and up above the stable was where we lived. It was a simple village house. In fact, there was no indoor bathroom, only a water wheel next to the stable. I remember there was a huge patio and my mother would wash all 4 of us kids on the patio. She’d throw buckets of water on us and we’d take the soap and wash ourselves. We were probably bathed this way every couple of days, not every day.

My father always had this relationship with horses, so we would bring some of our horses to the village in the summer. We had 2 horses and a donkey at that time, which I would ride when I was little. Not everyone had a house with a stable like ours. In fact, most people didn’t have horses. We were called “the horse people.” A lot of people had mules, but no horses. It was a very poor village, in fact.

Surrounding the village were farms with fields of lavender that the local people harvested while we were there. We would ride 1½ hours out from the village on my father’s horses to get to the fields and help out with the harvest. I remember those riding on the tractors only needed half that time.

My father was always there supervising everything. It was a very romantic thing. It was my grandfather’s business. When my grandfather died, my father decided to keep the land especially from this village because my grandfather had a great relationship with the men who managed this land. All around, the farms were already doing the harvest with machines. But my father knew that the whole village was living off of this month of harvesting.

That’s why it was always strange. We were these city people that owned this farm. But at the same time my best friends were these gypsy guys from the village. My father has always been very romantic so we were always dressed like gypsies and my mom was dressed like a southern woman. But we were all from the city, you know, from Barcelona. But during that month we were all dressed up like somebody else.

The farm was called “Casa Blanca” which means white house. That was one of the farms growing lavender. It was kind of like living in a movie because we were going to the lavender fields with the horses. Everybody who was working the fields went by car or motorbike. But we were the romantics going by horse and carriage. The family was in the carriage and my father on the horse. Honestly, it was really like living in a movie.

I remember many times coming back to the village on top of the tractor that was absolutely full of lavender. I loved that sensation of lying there and feeling the movement of the tractor, being embedded in the freshly picked lavender. When we’d arrive in the village, I loved throwing the packs of lavender to the other men, from the top of this mountain of lavender. In the end, there would be these big piles of lavender right up against the white walls of the houses ready for distillation.

For me, the smell of the combination of the harvested lavender and the limewash on the outside of the house was the smell of Mira. And it was also the heat of the sun hitting the outside walls of the house, causing the limewash to evaporate, mixed with the evaporated steam of the lavender distillation. It was a constant fabric of these smells together. This was how the whole village smelled. There was no way for anybody to avoid this smell. In fact, I remember the hot afternoons during the siesta time, suddenly through the open window would come this very particular smell.

It’s a strange smell because on the one hand it’s disturbing since limewash is a disinfectant. And like any disinfectant it has something that’s the opposite of healing, almost wounding. It’s very sharp and penetrating. It goes deep and is itchy.

Then you have the calm, softening effect of lavender that puts you into this very relaxed mood. And both things to me were together. To me, the combination is fantastic, even though I know consciously that it’s not a really nice smell. I wouldn’t make a perfume out of it.

For me this smell has to do with the idea that sometimes things can be rough and not too beautiful. But, on the other hand, you have the lavender putting this kind of elegant softness on top of this very hard and rough thing.

The smell makes me feel centered. For me it’s home. It’s the smell of home. It also reminds me of who I am.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to smell that smell anymore today. I tried to find it when I had phantosmia. I thought I smelled it then, but it wasn’t really that. I wish it was. There was this acetone aspect that reminded me of the limewash. And so consciously I was trying to grab onto this scent memory. But it wasn’t really that one.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? It would be a water wheel. The sound of the water and the cracking of the wood as the wheel turns.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? White. It’s bright. It’s lively. It absorbs all the harshness.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? Powdery. In a way it’s rough but also has something smooth. I think about the feel of talc, or the feel of powdered sugar on a cake. When you touch the cake, it’s slippery, but you get the roughness of the cake itself.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? It would tell me to stay honest and true. To just look to who you are and don’t betray that. Go back to your roots and feel comfortable with that. Tell yourself, “ok, this is who I am.” The scent would say “Who are you trying to fool? This is who you are. Accept it.” Because, in the end, it really has to do with home and being centered.