Today in a cafe I suddenly caught a scent — vanilla and cinnamon. And I was instantly transported to my grandmother's kitchen, where she was baking an apple pie.

Smells are the most powerful time machines. The perfume my mother wore when I was little. The shampoo I washed my hair with in first grade. Even the smell of wet asphalt after the rain — and here I am, running through puddles in pink rubber boots.

Each of us has such "anchors". For some, it's the smell of pine needles and tangerines (New Year's holidays!). For others, it's the aroma of freshly cut grass (summer in the countryside). And for others, it's the specific spirit of a school corridor, which for some reason smelled the same everywhere.

Sometimes I deliberately look for these smells. I open an old jar of cream that I had as a teenager. Or I buy the same gum that I chewed at summer camp.

It's like an instant escape from adulthood. At least for a second.