I keep my bedroom door closed at night during the winter. Even with the thermostat turned down to 65°,  the room holds the heat from its one vent very well.

At around 6:30, I’ll head to the kitchen to put the kettle on. My first footsteps into the hall often represent a difficult transition. The hallway floor is cold and my legs don’t seem to want to stay under me. Lying in bed is so much easier. My first cold morning thought is often a wish to slip back into bed and take up a wonderfully trans-rational dream narrative where things left off.

This wasn’t the case yesterday. When I opened my bedroom door, my nose was tickled with an unaccustomed aroma.

What’s that smell? I thought.

It was of course, the smell of pine. I forgot how it would greet me in the morning. I got a Christmas tree, a small Frazier Fir, the day before. It was now clamped upright in its stand, still undecorated, relaxing its branches and simply standing in a corner of my living room.

The smell made me smile, and not in an ironic sort of way although I have often wondered why household cleaners, made from the most unnatural things on earth, often come in pine scented versions. I smiled at the smell in my hallway because it cut through the cool air and made me feel connected to nature.

I know smells are supposed to be evocative. They can trigger memories like nothing else. But outside of my bedroom door, I was not expecting to feel transported to Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies. Years ago, I took a road trip from Calgary through Banff and Lake Louise, up to Kootenai British Columbia and back through Canmore.

So many times during this adventure, I marveled at the great pine trees, miraculously growing straight up towards the sun regardless of how steep the incline.The smell of pine seemed like the essence of what was best in nature.

I smiled, too, I think, for the moment of recognition itself. I knew what I smelled. There may only be a few other scents that are so unmistakable; maybe a lover’s cologne, a stew from a family recipe simmering on the stove, or baby powder (and the fresh skin of the child dusted in it).

My first reaction to the smell of pine in my house was to revel in memories of nature and that road trip, a time when I saw the world with a particularly open-heart. I was grateful that the smell re-connected me with the past. But smell also brings you into the present like nothing else.

If you are traveling anywhere in the world, your lodging may be of a non-descript standard, basically the same in Marrakesh as in Mexico City, but take a deep breath of the air along a winding street in any city’s old quarter, and you will know exactly where you are.

Rudyard Kipling once said, The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it. Maybe that’s true. Smell goes beyond words in defining a place or encapsulating a moment.

And the smell of pine in my home on this cold morning made me grateful for my ability to take in all fragrances.

Any time you breathe deeply and consciously is a great reminder to breathe deeply and consciously all the time.

Taking time to smell the roses — or the pine — is no small thing.