Smells and Bells

Over the past month, I got really sick. It got to the point where they thought I had gotten the coronavirus and I spent a really “wonderful” day visiting 2 hospitals and being put in the COVID section. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t open my eyes to see because light would send piercing pain throughout my head. I got accustomed to being wrapped in a blanket when I got intense chills. I couldn’t smell because of my stuffed up nose. I was used to hearing my doctor on the phone asking the question, “have you been in contact with anyone who has been investigated for corona?”  My senses were overloaded and not working at the same time. I couldn’t enjoy what I used to enjoy. Have no fear, I did not have the corona. Instead, I got a really fun case of mono. How’d I get that in quarantine? I have no idea. Already being chronically ill, getting any other disease makes it feel ten times worse.   The view I had of my crocs in hospital room #2  All I wanted was to go back t...

Diana Eck starts her book by saying that “in India’s own terms, seeing is knowing.” (Eck 11) However, she also talks about how we all see differently. She writes how we “reach out and grasp the ‘object we see, either in our immediate range of perception or through the medium of photography, is dependent upon who we are and what we recognize from past experience.” (Eck 15)   Chicken tenders that make me very happy when I see them.  It’s true that seeing is incredibly important. It’s important for religions, life, love, and everything in between. It allows us to register what other people feel when they don’t voice it. Seeing allows us to see the story the stained glass in a church tells. However, Eck’s point of how we all see things and how we attach ourselves to visuals that we are familiar with is very important. Whether we know it or not, we are all stuck in our comfort zone. We all like our little bubble that we sometimes burst out of to try new things when w...

Growing up, I used to always hear people talking about what their heart says or what their head says and which one they should listen to. I used to try to figure out what that meant and which one I should listen to. When I was little and faced with the difficult choices a six-year-old might face, I tried to think of what my heart would want and what my brain would want. My heart might want that piece of chocolate, but my brain knows that the extra piece might make me feel sick. Later on in life, I figured out I don’t really tend to listen to my heart or to my head. Instead, I trust my instinct. One might call it a “gut feeling” or my “sixth sense.”   I am very passionate about my gut always being right. I always trust my gut feeling even when that “feeling” is mild. Why? Because when my brain is going 5,000 miles per hour and is distracted through the other five senses, my gut is there to guide it. Some people might say that my gut and brain are the same things, but I t...

6 months ago, touch was a relatively welcome thing in this world. It was normal to greet someone with an awkward high five, a handshake in an interview, or a hug for reassurance. Although it is all for good reason, touch is now seen as forbidden or very much frowned upon. You must stay at least 6 feet apart when outside or at the grocery store. You should not shake hands, high five, or hug people who you are not in quarantine with. When you sneeze, make sure you cover so none of your germs touch those around you. We even use gloves when in the grocery store and worry about cross-contamination. We have been told to not touch our faces or refrain from doing so.   My mom and I using touch by hugging on her 50th birthday that happened during quarantine  This made me think of when Constance Classen wrote about touch with Adam and Eve. Classes wrote in her book, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch , that there were two senses of touch. The “sense of t...

When it comes to cooking in the kitchen, there can often be gender roles. In the Rielly household, we usually all cook our own breakfast and lunch, but for supper, we usually always share the same meal. In my house, there are no gender roles. If you use a plate, put it in the dishwasher. If you cook, clean up the mess. Just because I am a woman does not mean I was born to be in the kitchen. Degrading stereotypes aside, you really don’t want me cooking anyways. I once burned a pan when making a grilled cheese because I left the stovetop on after I was done. However, I like to think I have redeemed myself with my years of baking. My dad does most of the cooking because he likes it. We joke that when my mom makes a meal for the family she has done her cooking for the month.   Chefs working on their creations © When reading Elizabeth Perez’s Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions, I kept noticing how important it was to them that...

All my life I’ve attended a catholic church. During church, I have been used to hearing the English language in a way to express the word of the Lord. Except, it usually stops there. For one hour every Sunday, I listen to a priest talk about God and the lessons we can adopt into our own lives. The music, at least in my church, is generally reserved and not too exciting. The performance of language outside of the church seems to stop when we walk out that door. We take the lesson and think about it. Some may apply it to their lives and some may forget about it when they get back home.  However, Islam has a beautiful relationship with the performance of language. I see their relationship with their spiritual journey with hearing as one of a kind. They truly listen to musical techniques and aesthetics with the Arabic language. Anne Rasmussen wrote in her book, Rethinking Women, Music, and Islam , that music is almost part of “almost all rituals, programs, competitions, and fes...

Some of my favorite activities and memories are held during the holiday season. As someone who goes to college in a different state, coming back home for winter break makes it even more meaningful. It’s a time to catch up with my family, enjoy home-cooked meals, annoy my siblings, and sometimes find some peace and quiet during the busy holiday season. My Mom's Santa  One of my favorite things about the time leading up to Christmas is how my mom burns incense. It's always a comforting smell to me. Maybe it's because I have grown up Catholic so I am used to it, but it just adds that extra Christmas feeling. I've caught myself saying, "it smells like Christmas" when I walk into the house and my mom has lit the little Santa. My parents  Even when it is not winter, the smell of incense makes me think of being home at Christmas time. I can hear my dad complaining to my mom that the smell gives ...