I know brown coal, after nuclear, is the most environmentally destructive source of energy, but every time I smell lignite in the air, I feel at home. Maybe it was because my first time living abroad was in China, where the coal dust was so thick in Bejing that your white hospital mask (almost required while riding a bike) was black within minutes. I remember just hanging up my energetically washboarded clothes in the courtyard, only to see with horror a veil of coal dust descending on them minutes later. But given all this, I still love the smell, like chocolate, and it transports me as sure as the smell of pine needles and salt water will transport me to my childhood holidays on Cape Cod, or chicken soup to grandma's house. It is Eastern Europe, it is China, it is dirt and chaos and reality, it is "home."