「薫」の字は、ふくろのなかの物を火にあぶってくゆらすかたちをあらわしていて、
そこから、漂ういい香りをいうようになったと字典にある。「薫り」と書かれていると、いい匂いを連想しない？ なんかそれって不思議だね。
隣を歩いていたＡがそう言った。確かにそうかもしれないと思う。
「でもいい匂いと言っても、みんなそれぞれ思い浮かべるものは違うでしょう。Ａとわたしでも違うだろうし。ことばでもなかなか伝わりにくいし、なんだかたよりないものだよね」と話しながら、コーヒーの焙煎を仕事にしている知人が開くコーヒー教室で以前あったことを思い出した。コーヒーの香りをことばにあらわす、というのが参加した日の課題だった。
カップに注がれたコーヒーが三種類、テーブルに並べられた。
それを嗅いで印象をことばで書き留める――香りをことばにするなんて簡単だと、ペンを片手にカップに顔を近づける。
香ばしい匂いがする。次に隣のカップを手にしても、やっぱり香ばしい匂いがする。
それから頭の中でなにかスイッチが切れたような気がした。
香りをたとえることばは一向に出てこない。わたしのようなひとが他にもいるのか、知人が「ことばにするのが難しかったら絵でもいいですよ」と声をかけているのが聞こえる。
香りを嗅ぎながら、半ばやけになってとにかく手を動かし、丸や四角を描いてみたものの、どうもしっくりこない。そうこうしているうちに印象を発表する時間になった。「土から掘り返したばかりのふきのとうの香り」、「買ったばかりのカーペットのちょっとケミカルな匂い」。発表がはじまり、食べ物だけでなく、さまざまな匂いに結びつけ印象を話すひとがいることに驚いた。そんなことばが出てこないだけでなく、共感できそうなことばや感覚も見当たらない自分に気づく。
結局わたしは、最後まで嗅いだコーヒーの香りをひとつもことばにできなかった。ひとは「いい香り」を誰かに伝え、共有したいのかもしれない。けれどあの日、それはとても難しいことのような気がした。だからひとは、「いい香り」をあらわす字をつくったのではないか。目にすると、それぞれの記憶にあるいい香りを思い浮かべてしまう「薫」の字。その字が捉えどころのない香りそのもののように見えてきた。
“薫ずる”（Kunzuru）“薫”KasetsuAccording to the Kanji dictionary, the character “薫” represents the shape of something in a bag being swung over a fire and grilled. From this it came to refer to a good smell wafting through the air.
“When written 薫り（kaori）, doesn't it make you think of a good smell? It's kind of strange, isn't it?” said A, walking next to me. I think that may certainly be true. “But even if you say something smells good, everyone thinks something different smells good. What you and I think are different. We can't express it in words. We're kind of helpless,” I say, recalling something that had happened before in a coffee class an acquaintance who worked brewing coffee held.The topic that day I attended was expressing the smell of coffee in words. Three kinds of coffee were poured into cups and lined up next to one another on the table. We were to smell them and then write down our impressions of them—Writing down the smells in words should be easy, I thought, taking my pen in my hand and bringing my face to the cup. It had a pleasant aroma. I then took the cup next to it in my hand. It, too, had a pleasant aroma. I felt that something had switched off in my brain then. Words to explain the smells hardly came to me. There must have been someone else like me, because I heard my acquaintance say, “If you can't express it in words, you can draw it out.” I had half given up while smelling the coffees, but I moved my hand, trying to draw circles and squares. Yet none of it sat well with me. While I was trying this and that, it came time to present our impressions.“It smells like a butterbur sprout freshly dug from the soil”, “It has kind of a newly purchased carpet's chemical smell”. The presentations had started. I was surprised that people spoke of their impressions by comparing them to many different smells, not just foods. I realized that it wasn't just that these words didn't come to me, but that I couldn't find sensations or words that I felt others could identify with. I ended up unable to put into a single word the aromas of the coffee that I had smelled.
People probably communicate “good smells” because they want to have something in common with others. However, that day I felt like it was very difficult for me to do that. That's why people invented characters to show such “good smells”. “薫”is a character that when read brings up many different memories of good smells. It started to seem to me like the very elusive smells themselves.
>一井りょう「薫ずる」
>華雪「薫」
