Latest / The Culture Club: Books, Art, Film, Music & Entertainment / Turpentine, Trauma, and the Memoir of Smell | The Culture Club
Transcript
- There is a specific scent that lives in the back of your throat when you’re trying to remember something you never wanted to forget. It smells like chemical burns and old rain, and it tastes like fear. I want you to close your eyes for just a second. No, really. Put down whatever you’re holding, if it’s safe to do so. Imagine you are standing in a garage that hasn’t been opened in ten years. The air is thick, heavy with dust motes dancing in a single shaft of afternoon light. And then, you catch it. That sharp, stinging, unmistakable aroma of turpentine. It’s not just a smell; it’s a time machine. It pulls you back into a body you thought had forgotten how to feel that way. For many of us, memory isn’t visual. We don’t see faces or places first. We smell them. We taste them. And today, I want to talk about the memoirs that aren’t written in ink, but in fumes. In the volatile solvents of our past that refuse to evaporate. Let’s dig into the velvet of this idea, shall we? Writing a memoir about trauma is hard enough when you’re dealing with abstract emotions. But when you anchor it to something as visceral as smell, you bypass the brain’s editing room entirely. The olfactory nerve connects directly to the amygdala, the fear center, and the hippocampus, the memory hub. There is no filter. When you write about the smell of turpentine, you aren’t describing a painting session. You are describing a moment of suspended terror. Maybe it was a parent mixing paints in the basement while shouting. Maybe it was the sterile, metallic tang of a hospital waiting room that smelled suspiciously like cleaning chemicals and anxiety. These writers are using scent as a narrative device to drag the reader into the raw, unpolished truth of their experience. They are saying, 'I can’t explain why I was afraid, but I can show you what the air felt like when it happened.' What’s the texture of this fear? Is it sticky? Does it coat the tongue? In these stories, the turpentine becomes a character. It’s not just background noise; it’s an antagonist. Think about how pungent that smell is. It demands attention. It makes your eyes water. It forces you to breathe shallowly. Good memoirists understand that physical sensations are the anchors of emotional truth. If you tell me you were scared, I might believe you. If you tell me your throat burned with every breath because the air was thick with solvent, I feel it. I’m leaning forward. I’m checking my own lungs. This is where the artistry lies—not in the big dramatic moments, but in the small, sensory details that prove the reality of the pain. It’s the difference between saying 'it was bad' and making the reader gag slightly at the memory of it. That is powerful writing. That is brave writing. And let’s talk about the 'old fear.' Why do we keep coming back to these smells? Why do we write them down? Because forgetting feels like a betrayal. If we let the scent fade, does the event lose its weight? Some authors write to reclaim the space. They take the thing that hurt them—the toxic environment, the abusive atmosphere—and they turn it into something beautiful on the page. They distill the chaos into prose. It’s alchemy. They say, 'You thought this smell would break me, but look. I turned it into words. I turned it into art.' But there’s also a gentler reason. Sometimes, we write about these things just to name them. To say, 'Yes, that was real. Yes, it smelled like that. And I am still here, breathing clean air, typing this sentence.' It’s an act of survival. It’s looking at the ghost of the past and waving hello without flinching. I’ve always believed that creativity is a form of digestion. We take in the world, especially the painful parts, and we break it down until it becomes something we can handle. Turpentine dissolves oil paint. It breaks things apart so they can be cleaned, or repainted, or removed. In a way, writing these memoirs is similar. We use language to dissolve the solid, heavy block of trauma until it becomes fluid, manageable, and ultimately, shareable. But be careful. Not all memories are meant to be shared. Not all scars need an audience. There is a boundary here, a line between catharsis and exposure. The best memoirists know this. They write for themselves first, to process the smell, to clear the air. If someone else finds resonance in their words, that’s a gift. But the primary purpose is always the healing of the writer. It’s about clearing the fumes from your own lungs so you can finally take a deep, full breath again. So, where do we go from here? How do we carry this with us? Maybe you have a smell that triggers you. A scent of antiseptic, or burnt sugar, or wet dog. Don’t push it away. Sit with it. Ask yourself, 'Tell me more about that feeling.' What is it trying to show you? Often, our bodies remember what our minds try to bury. By acknowledging the smell, by giving it a name, we rob it of its power to sneak up on us. We bring it into the light. We put it on the canvas of our awareness. And sometimes, we paint over it. Or sometimes, we leave it there, stark and bright, as a reminder of how far we’ve come. The key is agency. You choose when to open the jar. You choose when to walk away. You are the curator of your own sensory museum. And that is a profound kind of freedom. Open your eyes now. Take a deep breath. Notice the air in this room. Is it stale? Fresh? Does it smell like coffee, or rain, or nothing at all? Just notice it. Feel the absence of that old, sharp sting. Feel the relief of being present, here, now, in a space that is yours. This episode wasn’t just about writing; it was about breathing. About reclaiming your senses from the ghosts of the past. Whether you are a writer, a reader, or just someone navigating your own history, remember that you have the power to define your atmosphere. You can change the scent of your days. You can fill your life with lavender and linen and fresh bread, pushing out the old, chemical fears. You get to decide what fills the air around you. And that decision, made one breath at a time, is the most creative act of all. Thank you for letting me into your headspace today. Be gentle with your memories. I’ll see you in the next one. Bye for now.