I've been thinking a lot about our sense of smell lately. Perhaps an odd thing to be thinking about but it is the path my mind has wandered along a few times recently so it might be time to write about it.
There's a lot of "banning of scents" in the city these days. I just overheard a conversation recently where a lady was complaining because her boss had asked her not to wear scented deoderant anymore because another employee in the cubicle next to her was having a reaction.
I think that's sad. Sad, of course, because she can't wear deoderant. But sad too, because there are people allergic to scent. The sense of smell, to me, is amazing. Truly. I can't think of a stronger element that can disgust you, please you, overwhelm you, or remind you. Specifically, the remind part. I can't believe how quickly I can be transported back in time by a whiff of something I recognize. Par example:
The Scent of My Grandfather: I don't even know the name of his cologne but whenever I smell someone wearing it, I tear up and want to run to the arms of the person wearing it. It must be a fairly common scent because I have smelled it before. I am transported back to one of the bone crushing hugs my Poppa used to give me.
The Scent of My Grandma's Pantry: Just the other day I was taken back to the old pantry off her kitchen when I opened a tin of home-baked chocolate chip cookies I had baked. It had never happened to me quite so strongly before. I was, all of a sudden, sneaking one of her cookies from her blue tin off the shelf in the old farm-house.
The Scent of Guilt: There is a cheap woman's cologne out there called Night Musk. If EVER I smell that crap, I feel awful in the pit of my stomach. When I was 15 I snuck out while my parents were away and met up with a German boy I had met only days before.(And came home at a very unreasonable hour, grounded for a few weeks, hence the guilt.) I doused myself in that evil cologne before I went and it still makes me feel terrible whenever I smell it.
The Scent of Clean: There are three of these:
Vinegar and Water for washing floors. This totally takes me back to my mom's kitchen as she always washed the floor with this mixture.
Sheets off the Clothesline: This is the scent of heaven trapped in cotton.
Ivory Dish soap: This is all I use because, again, I am transported to my grandma's kitchen. It's all she ever used to do her dishes and I love being reminded of her old farm house.
The Scent of my Husband: He has several scents but the one I actually like is the smell of lumber. There is a definite smell to it and many days he comes home smelling of freshly cut wood. It's a good smell.
The Scent of Christmas: This summer we were hiking in Vermont on top of some tall mountain covered in Balsam trees. It was like taking a long wander into Christmas. The smell was incredible and I tried to breathe as deeply as I could to take it all in.
I was thinking about my scent ~ will I leave a legacy of smells? Perhaps you think this is a funny question, but I do think of my grandfather and how I can go back in time to be with him when I smell him. With all the scent banning, I don't wear any particular perfume or body spray. But I want to. I want to leave my friends and family with a lasting memory of me when I'm gone...hopefully later rather than sooner.
There are a host of other smells that bring back feelings...like the smell of brand new baby (yum!) or the smell of formaldehyde (takes me back to grade 10 bio when I dissected a frog and poked it in the eye and something squirted out and hit me in the neck!), the smell of BBQ, and so many more. Will some of these memory-triggering scents be lost as we move into a scent-free world?? I hope not!
I loved this post! So true- I have many smells that instantly transport me to a time past.
ReplyDeleteMy fav line, though: "He has several scents but the one I actually like is the smell of lumber"...that made me laugh!
Hee! "The Smell of Guilt"! Hilarious! Your post really reminded me that scents are SO incredibly specific to every person. To me, the smell of Chanel #5 perfume will alway signal the aura of a big, fancy night on the town, because that's the only perfume my mother ever wore, and ONLY when she and my dad were dressing up and going to a big event. Someone else told me she hated Chanel #5, because her father's new wife, with whom he had had an affair, wore way too much of it, all the time. To each her own!!
ReplyDeleteMy uncle was (still is) a car dealer and I spent alot of wonderful time with my cousins as a child. The smell of new car always reminds me of them....
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean.
I burn scented candles at Christmas and thanksgiving, to create a memory filled ambience...nothing like the smell of cinnamon and apple....
I remember that German boy! AND that cologne! lol
ReplyDeleteI forgot about gr.10 biology class (thankfully) but I do now remember how much we hated it and the gross frog!
Isn't it funny that we can love certain strange smells if they are associated with our husbands? I LOVE the smell of carpet or fresh cut hardwood on Len. The socks, I could do without..