In Rebecca Harding’s short story “Life in the Iron Mills,” Harding writes, “The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke.” I originally read this story nearly two years ago, yet this line still resonates with me. The concept that we one symbol, word, image can define a place captivates me. As I traveled on my global gap year, I began attempting to identify the idiosyncrasies of each town; suffice it to say I could not fulfill the task. I soon realized just how difficult it is to summarize an entire place–its culture, its people, its essence–in one word. As Nicola Twilley began her discussion of terroir and aeroir, I wondered if perhaps she had a better sentiment. Maybe language does not suffice. Maybe taste is the answer. I am so intrigued by this gastronomy; I wonder if smell can transport us to a far away memory, can taste transport us to a far away place? What emotional value comes from both terroir and aeroir?\u00a0Individual experience is so varied, which perhaps make writing the idiosyncrasy of a town subjective. But, is air, smell, taste all subject to equal subjectivity? Or are these senses exempt from the distortion of the individual lived experience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Rebecca Harding’s short story “Life in the Iron Mills,” Harding writes, “The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke.” I originally read this story nearly two years ago, yet this line still resonates with me. The concept that we one… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6960,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[249054],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}