Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Nose Knows


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!

4 comments:

  1. I loved this post! So true- I have many smells that instantly transport me to a time past.

    My fav line, though: "He has several scents but the one I actually like is the smell of lumber"...that made me laugh!

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  2. 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!!

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  3. My 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....

    I 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....

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  4. I remember that German boy! AND that cologne! lol

    I 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..

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