Smells and Bells

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...

 When looking back in my memory for a suitable story having to do with smell, my mind went back to when I was a kid. After my dad passed away, my memory kind of blurs and contorts, but one of my first big impressions of my mom in the after-time had to do with smell. She was only forty when he passed away, and nothing prompts somebody to fall into a midlife crisis like a large tumultuous event like a loss. Her new drug of choice was essential oils. Not in the antivax way, but to compliment them: to dispel mosquitoes or ease headaches or digestion, to put in baths or baked goods. Most commonly, we would make what she called "lotions and potions"- scented oils in any smells we wanted. Though she long lost interest in it, I can see why at the time she gravitated to the allure of smells as a way to escape loss. Green spoke of  "Soothing odors" (72) in The Aroma of Righteousness , as spoken of in the Hebrew Bible, as smells were extolled by the ancient Jewish people, as t...

       In Aroma of Righteousness one idea that really stuck with me is the idea that smell can connect us to something otherworldly. Green uses the example of incense being used to reach God and as a result those people feel closer to God. I'm not a religious individual, when I was forced to go to church as a kid I didn't smell anything and feel connected. But I do think this happens in the real world with much smaller instances, it has the same impact though. I have always lived near water since I live in Rhode Island and as a kid I was constantly surrounded by water. But when I went to college in Virginia it was a shock to me to not smell salt water when I went outside. It's interesting now to think about how I felt so detached from home. When I moved back to Rhode Island I was so happy to hear the sound of the ocean and smell it, even just seeing it I felt so much closer to my home. This to me is a much smaller version of what Green describes when people use incen...

" The acts of lighting incense and the anointment of the priests are also depicted through highly evocative images of distinction and exclusivity." (Green, 69) In this photo, there are three people wearing white robes. Two are priests, who went through years of schooling and religious teachings, who worked hard to be called priests-- pillars of our community. The other person is me. We are not equal in our knowledge, or religious commitments, but we are dressed the same. I have been promoted to their level for one thing: I'm handling the incense.  In my hometown church in Connecticut, this photo was taken in April 2025, on the Saturday of the Great Easter Vigil, the first official service celebrating the return of Jesus. It's held around sunset, and usually also includes a handful of baptisms. I was raised in this church, Trinity Episcopal in Torrington. The two priests behind me in the photo have been priests for me in different times in my life, and are still import...