The Power of Smell

Interestingly, before reading Diane Ackerman's section in A Natural History of the Senses about our sense of smell, I can't say that I had ever really thought about all the wonderful things we can link to our ability to smell things. Truthfully, I think this is because I have for most of my life had a very poor sense of smell. I remember going to the Portland Rose Garden in Oregon with my family when I was 16 and my family coming up to me to marvel at how beautiful the entire place smelled. I, however, had to stick my nose directly into any of the roses in order to smell anything. 

So, after reading through Ackerman's section on smell, I really had to sit back and think about how smell has connected me to certain memories throughout my life. I loved her descriptions about the ways that certain smells would suddenly transport her back to her childhood, how something about the smell of tagging Monarch butterflies sent her straight back to Illinois in the 50s, breathing in the scent of Vicks Vaporub that her mom had put on her chest. Unfortunately, I really have to mull around in my brain in order to place any smells that trigger such vivid memories for me.

It's difficult for me to think about smells out here that trigger any nostalgic memories for me, but I can think of a few that I smell often when I'm at home in Arizona. Freshly fallen rain on the dry dirt of the desert and on the leaves of the mesquite trees teleports me back to being five with my sister. It's crisp and herbal, and it reminds me of watching as my neighbors far up the culdesac from my family's house would flood their lawn. They would leave the hose running for a few minutes too long and a stream of water would run down the sidewalk and trail down the curb until it reached our house. My sister and I would follow it until it reached the end of the street, right before the busy road nearby. We would place the long stalk-like mesquite leaves on the little river that had formed and chase our leaf until we couldn't follow it any longer. When all that fun was done, we would head back to the house and play around the garden of cacti that lay beneath the enormous mesquite tree in our yard. Stones separated the garden of cacti from the rest of our stone-covered lawn, and my sister and I would balance on each stone, circling the small garden. 

That classic wet dog smell reminds me of Maya, my childhood dog. She was a mighty Doberman-Shepherd mix and she was a scary, ferocious girl, but she loved children and enjoyed a bath now and again. My mom would tie her purple, fabric leash around the lime green poles of our back porch and would gently hose her down. And she would smile a terrifying smile as we shampooed her, lips pulled back like she was snarling at us, but with her shy tail wagging behind her. When the bath was done, she would shake out sparkling water drops from her coarse coat and race around the house in a joyous frenzy. She had been a rescue from an abusive home, so, most of the time, she was often up in furious defense, except for when she was released from the bath, freshly clean. Baths, however, turned her into a silly, happy puppy again.

Diane Ackerman also talked about our natural scents, and I found this part interesting. I remember deciding one day in high school: "If I don't smell good, then I smell bad." From then on I began wearing perfume every day. While one could blame it on me simply being a teenage girl, I'd like to blame it on my mother. I remember searching through her bathroom drawers one day and stumbling upon a mysterious perfume bottle. I opened the cap and sniffed and was instantly brought back to being a toddler and smelling that scent on her every day. It was Chanel No. 5, she told me. When she was in high school, she had apparently fallen in love with the Marylin Monroe quote that Ackerman mentioned, where she coyly replied that she wears Chanel No. 5 to bed. A perfume that had been designed to be attractive and sexy to me smelled loving and comforting. It smelled like my mom's warm embrace, not Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, my sister loved that story and the attachment we have to it because of our mom, so now she wears it. Because of that, though, I no longer smell Chanel No. 5 and think back to being a small baby in my mother's arms anymore. 

Some people, of course, do not try to change their natural smell through cologne or perfume. Instead, some just leave their natural scent. I doubt these people are doing it intentionally, but I have found that most of us have some natural scent that makes us different from each other. I remember my big brother had a very distinct natural smell. In reality, I think the smell I remember must have been from him maybe not using enough deodorant or something, because my brain would always register it as a kind of body odor. This all sounds like a gross description of it, but because it was so closely linked to someone I loved, like my big brother, I found the smell quite comforting. When I was a kid and he was around very often, I wouldn't think much of it, but rather "oh yeah, that's him, that's Connor." I remember when he went off to college, though, and I saw less of him, that it was a smell I latched onto. There was a girl who went to my high school for about a year, but she sat next to me in our Calculus class, and I remember thinking, "God, it's so weird... She smells just like Connor..." If I told this nice girl that she smelled like my older brother, she would have most definitely been offended. But I felt such an immediate attachment to her because of it. It was as if my brain was trying to tell me, "oh, she must be nice, she must be such a wonderful person." 

Subways remind me of my grandpa's basement when he lived in New Hampshire, and old books remind me of my dad's old book collection and their dusty pages. I picked up one of my friend's cats the other day, and while giving the little guy a small kiss on the shoulder, I let in a big breath and was filled with the most amazing feeling of safety and love and comfort. I am a devout cat lover, so my friend's cat reminded me of my cats back home who I miss dearly. I love the smell of coffee, vanilla, basil, cliffrose, rain after a drought, all kinds of floral lotions, patchouli candles, fire pits in the backyard, freshly washed strawberries, and crisp, morning air. Also, now that I'm 21, I'm a fan of the smell of red wine, but I love the aroma of Frangelico most of all. (Frangelico tastes amazing in a pecan pie!) 

When I really start thinking about it, there are a million smells I adore but that also trigger so many emotions for me. I also loved reading Diane Ackerman's section on smell, and I didn't even cover most of the section. There's so much to say, but I clearly had plenty to say about just smells connecting us to memory already. There are so many small "insignificant" memories I can recall through smell that I surely would have forgotten if there's wasn't a specific sense to link it to. They're, in a sense, somewhat unimportant memories that are not ground-breaking amongst the grand scheme of my life, and yet it is through recalling them that I can think about just how special it is to have such memories at all.