Smells and Bells

Green speaks on the power of scent and the memory it can conjure, the surreal experiences it can create. Smell has always been something I’ve been quite privy too— whether it be a pleasant or putrid one, headache inducing or heart warming, I crave the experience of linking something to a scent. One summer a handful of years ago (it was June of 2025…) I had the opportunity to take a week in Paris after a study abroad semester in Japan. Where my memory fails me, my experience in the olfactory department does not. Mainly because I bought fragrances in both locations that I constantly sniff, but that’s besides the point. Let me go over some of these scents, the good and bad, and put what Green discusses to real life experiences: Philosopher's Path, Kyoto, Japan. April 5th, 2025 : On this day I decided to take a stroll down a historic path many have dubbed "Philosopher's Path.” I think it has something to do with how many great artists, writers, creatives, etc, have walked ...

 The conclusion section of Aroma of Righteousness got me to think. What are bad smells that are comforting or enjoyable? God apparently likes the smell of a dead person. I know I don't, but what might be something like that? It isn't a DEAD human, but it's hard not to like the smell of a person. Whether it be a cologne, a shampoo, or whatever natural oils. When you really care about someone, platonically or romantically, you notice that stuff. Lying on the couch with a former boyfriend, I was absolutely outraged to find out, through my nose, that he had gotten a different deodorant. I didn't like the original one, a bit too "man" for my taste, but when he changed it, I missed it. He didn't smell like himself anymore.  My aunt is similar. Every time I see her, I'm immediately swooped into a lovely squishy hug, and she always smells the same. I'm not sure what it is, but it's always a typical overly floral aunt perfume, and it reminds me of famil...

      Like many people who have a sense of smell, I associate certain scents with certain people I hold close to me. My mom smells of the same shampoo she's used since I was a kid, my partner smells of his aerosol deodorant, and my grandpa smelled of Brut aftershave. Unlike the inherent, human smells that people have before perfuming themselves with their product of choice, the products that they would use don't stop existing once they're no longer around. Because the brain holds on to scents, it is very possible that you will remember the smell and associate it with that specific person for the rest of your life. Which makes loss impossibly difficult.      In the Aroma of Righteousness, I found the traditions of using perfumes and scented oils in the burial process to be especially poignant. Not only from a historical context, as scent would have been a large part of the preparation process in some cases simply to protect the olfactory senses of those prep...

When I think about smell, and the smells that mean something to me, two immediately come to mind. Even to this day, my mother has an unmistakable smell that makes me feel completely at ease. She works for a software company and had to travel a lot when I was little. Once I was old enough, she would sometimes take me with her. But whenever she was gone for more than a few days, she smelled different when she came home. One of the first times she went away that I can actually remember was a trip to California. She left at about one in the morning, and I begged her to wake me up so I could say bye. I cried as I waved through our glass door and watched her car leave my driveway. When she came back, her hair was straight, and she was wearing a green cashmere sweater; she looked beautiful. But all I could do was cry, out of relief, yes, but also because she didn’t smell right. She smelled like a mixture of her normal scent mixed with something that screamed hotel. The other scent that immedi...

 I miss the stinky streets of Montpellier, France. During my study abroad last semester, the streets I wondered down everyday left a powerful impression on me. Not a particularly positive one either. At the time I was there, I had visceral reactions when I walked down certain streets in the small city and saw trash crumpled on the sidewalk from people stepping over it all day long. I don't know if it was just a quintessential city smell or if it was specific to Montpellier, but there was a potent odor that no new foreign student could deny. Especially one from a small coastal town in Maine, with the only strong detectable odor being the salty Atlantic Ocean. The city was beautiful and quaint, but I came to learn that certain parts were best avoided or at the very least, I needed to cover my nose to walk down a street or two in my neighborhood, Plan Cabanes. My friends and I joked pretty much everyday about how there was an unpleasant smell wafting down the narrow roads that lay bet...

Aroma of Righteousness / Smell  Before reading Deborah Green’s The Aroma of Righteousness, I mostly thought of smell as something simple. Something either smells good or it smells bad. What I found interesting is that Green shows how smell had a much deeper meaning in ancient Jewish culture. Perfume, spices, and incense could be connected to religion, people’s character, love, sacrifice. One part that stood out to me was the story of Rabbi Eliezer. He was very poor while studying Torah and ended up eating dirt, which caused him to have bad breath. His teacher explained that even though his breath smelled bad, the knowledge he gained from studying Torah would spread like a pleasant fragrance. Green uses this story to show how a bad smell could be transformed into something positive and meaningful.  Quote: “The fragrance of your learning go from one end of the world to the other.”  I also found it interesting that Green explains how people in this time period experienced sm...