Smells are Magic: Memories Evoked by Layered Scents

Before reading the first chapter of Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, I hadn’t given much thought to the history of the sense of smell, the thousands of scents that we can smell, and the lasting impression they leave on us. Ackerman describes tagging butterflies in California, and smelling fragrant eucalyptus trees in the forest around her. It transported her back to her childhood, when her mother would rub Vick’s vapor rub on her chest. It amazes me how scents stand the test of time for decades. My sophomore year, pre-COVID, I let a girl drink out of my water bottle. I was very embarrassed when she exclaimed “Your water bottle smells like the penguin ride at Story Land!”. I was grossed out, but she seemed nostalgic. I hope she meant plastic-y, but I still have no idea what she meant. 

I love smells, and reading about smells, so this chapter was definitely a treat. Years ago, I read a book set in the 1950s called The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead. There was a scene in that book that describes the scent and overall feel of a hotel room in New Orleans, Louisiana inhabited by the two main characters. For two pages, Olmstead goes into such detail about this room, and how the main character experienced this place with his lover who herself smelled of “nutmeg”. I dog-eared the page to return to whenever I felt like being transported to this other time and place that I want to experience so desperately.

Something that really intrigued me was that, according to Ackerman, children supposedly like most smells before they can be taught differently. I had never thought about how “good smells” vary cross-culturally. My favorite smell in the world is one that I’ll never be able to replicate. Exactly as Helen Keller described an “old-fashioned country house [with] several layers of odors, left by a succession of families, of plants, of perfumes and draperies” (p. 45), I always loved the scent of my grandparent’s home in New Hampshire ever since I can remember.  The scent of their house would vary at different times of the year. In the fall and winter it smelled like woodsmoke, a Chinese five spice candle, burnt blueberry pancakes, pine sap, old books, maple bacon. In the spring and summer it smelled like cut grass, woodsmoke still, bugspray, wildflowers, and a slight mildewy smell that I personally like but my mom hated. I remember these layered smells more powerfully than any other physical aspect of the house. It smelled like a house that was so old it had become one with nature.

Not my grandparent's house, but a New England salt box house, courtesy of Pinterest. Can't you just smell it!!

A few years ago, my sister and I walked into a historic house museum, the Smith Appleby House in Smithfield, Rhode Island. It was built in the 1700s, as was my grandparent’s home in New Hampshire. The combination of the age of the wood, and the bricks, and the objects in the house caused me and my sister to immediately exchange glances. Not just visually, but the smell of the place was the closest we had gotten to our grandparent’s house in years. To smell certain things, you have to be physically very close to them. And to think that I’ll never smell certain people, places or things makes me very sad! I can look at photos all I want but I’ll never be able to smell my Bompa and his Florida Water cologne, or my dog Teddy’s paws that smelled like fritos. Weird smells, but they evoke a feeling of sadness when I smell them, even though they might mean nothing to another person.  

As Ackerman said, we are breathing all the time, smelling constantly. When we sleep next to someone, we are breathing them in. It’s hard to describe smells, and it’s sometimes a weird thing to tell your friends about. Total TMI, but the part I enjoy most about kissing someone is breathing in the air that they breathe out. Before I read this chapter, I thought I was alone in feeling this way. It was so interesting to learn that the word for kiss in some languages actually means to smell (page 23). If I only ever experience a combination of smells when I am with a person, it’s a very comforting sensory experience. Overall, this chapter made me far more aware of my sense of smell, and what a gift it is to have one.