Petrichor is one of my favorite scents. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s the smell that occurs after rain has hit soil and mixes with the air after a storm. It has a slight peaty quality and while it’s been around since the earth began, the term only came about in 1964 due to a pair of Australian scientists. It combines the Greek words petra and ichor: petra simply meaning “stone” but ichor being more complicated since it doesn’t have a direct translation to English. It comes from a mythological concept, specifically referring to the blood spilled by the gods during their fight with the Titans. Said to be toxic for humans to contact, I suspect the scientists chose the term since one of the key components of petrichor is the chemical geosmin, which gives off a musky smell and can be toxic if it contaminates wine or water supplies.
Image from Unsplash by Luca Bravo
The term’s mythological connections are fitting as there’s a Romantic quality about overcast/slightly rainy days that leads to that smell mixing with the ozone, signaling there’s a storm heading your way. I was teased in college for preferring overcast days versus sunny ones but it was because the former comes and goes with a bit of wild randomness whereas you’re more likely to see the sunshine on any given day. It’s especially magical when you also can see the clouds off in the distance, feel the oncoming breeze, and that earthy odor comes up to remind you to take cover soon. The moodiness of it all is quite attractive and if I could harness it as an emotional energy confidently, I think it’d only make me feel more like Heathcliff brooding out there on the moors in Wuthering Heights but without any of the abusive bullshit included.
When I was made fun of for liking petrichor and rainy days, a lot of that was due to being a sulky 20-something English major. What was stranger was that I actually hated that smell during my teenage years due my often-washed-out camping trips as a Boy Scout. It happened almost every time: we would have the monthly camping trip planned for the second weekend, gather up all of our equipment from our troop’s designated shed behind the church I went to (the chuck boxes were the worst), throw them into the cars, and get to the sites in the darkest possible hours. Imagine having about 15 to 20 irritated 12 to 16-year-olds griping and moaning as they set their campsite up during downpours with little Coleman lanterns as the only lights around. It tends to dampen the mood, to put it lightly. And yet it would happen like clockwork. Each month, every month, for five years. Had it not been for it being high-quality Father-Son time whenever he wasn’t deployed, I would’ve never bothered with all that fucking camping in the rain to get my Eagle Scout rank eventually.
Yet somehow by college, I learned to appreciate that rain since I no longer had to camp in it every month. Part of that appreciation came from being somewhat goth-y in demeanor but also by starting to tie the smell and the clouds with childhood memories further back than my scouting days. Memories that focused on going on errands with my mom while my dad was serving overseas and stopping for lunch at a good restaurant, playing outside and seeing the clouds over the woods in my neighborhood and the occasionally stag or fox come onto the bike trail, and the actual quality time I got to have with my dad during those washed-out camping trips. Those moments are often hazy by your late thirties but somehow still feel alive even when they can never be replicated. Knowing that ultimately changed how I approached rain and being caught up in it.
Do I love tenting in the rain 20 years later? No but I’ve gone camping with my spouse and our friends numerous times since then and it’s always been the petrichor that helps keeps my mood in check.
Additional Info
If you want to get a quick overview of the science behind petrichor, here's a PDF created by the American Chemical Society to get you started:
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