Magic In The Air

This may seem like a stretch for some of you, but I hope you trust me enough to go with it for a minute while I try to explain what the heck is going on in my head these days.

Smell is a language. A smell can tell you something that nothing else can. The scent of sweat tells you of heat or activity. The scent of laundry detergent brings a feeling of warmth and cleanliness. The scent of chocolate chip cookies takes you home to Mom and makes you thirsty for milk. The scent of burning leaves makes you feel warm and puts you at ease the way friends huddled around a bonfire in the middle of a summer night can make you talk about things you never would have anywhere else. We each have different languages with smell, what we like and what we don’t. My sister, oddly enough, loves the smell of a gas station. I hate it, it gives me a headache. One of my friends loves flowery lotions and perfumes. I prefer more subtle and earthy smells. Does it say something about our personality? Probably. But what?

Smell is also an interpretation. It is a way of opening the world. The paragraph above? You all knew exactly what I was talking about. You all saw those images in your mind, could smell that scent. You all have memories or stories around those scents and millions of others. Every person has a smell. Every home has a smell. You judge a person right away based on their smell. You may not think you do, but subconsciously we notice and we either approve or disapprove. What perfume a woman wears tells us a lot about her, if she has money or not, if she wants to stand out or not, and sometimes if she can smell it or not… What scents do you keep in your house? Why? What are you saying? What do you want others to know just by the smell of your rooms? Or do you actually think about it?

Smell is tied to memories. The scent of a new born baby after a bath. The scent of rain in spring as you walk out to the bus stop and try to avoid the worms on the pavement. The smell of bread baking in the oven. The smell of your dad’s deodorant after a shower. The smell of your grandmother’s White Diamonds perfume. The smell of your friend’s boyfriend as you both smell his hooded sweatshirt during early morning bible study because nobody at your school smells that good… I still remember the way the NICU smelled when I visited in 1998. It had that stale, but clean generic smell of a hospital, mingled with the sweet, subtle fragrance of a baby’s bath and diaper wipes and formula, and the even more subtle hint of burnt something as the machines whirled angrily in their protection of the precious charges they bore.

Smell is tied to emotions. The same candle that sits in my mom’s kitchen sits in my bedroom in my apartment because it smells like home. The subtle smell of coffee takes me to the place I feel most myself, my grandmother’s house, and I smile every time. The smell of warm popcorn makes me hungry. The smell of pine makes me sad unless it’s December. The smell of sandalwood makes me lonely.

An interesting experience happened a few years ago when I was living and working in Cincinnati for massage therapy school. I had lived there as a kid and gone to all of pre-school and elementary school during our time there. We had this principal at my elementary school. She was awesome. Tough, but kind. She always wore the business-suit combo of the 90’s, but she made it work. Her hair was the blonde version of Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, but with more body. She was a tan woman, with bold lipstick, white teeth, and she was just so pretty, even for an older [ish…. I have no idea how old she was, I was a child, everybody is old by comparison] woman. And she had this smell. It was a sweet smell, but with deeper, bold edges to it. And it had that faint hint of alcohol that told you it was a perfume as opposed to a detergent or lotion. No idea what it was, but she was the only woman on earth who smelled that way. And because I liked her, and she liked me, it was a good smell.

I was working at my part-time job one day, minding my own business, when I smelled that smell. It had been at least 10 years MINIMUM since I had smelled it. But I automatically was taken back to that elementary school and that office and that principal. Just for kicks, I looked up from my work and looked intently at all the customers. Lo and behold, there she was. Sans 90’s business suit combo, but same hair, same tan, same face, and, apparently, same smell. I smiled to myself, remembering how much I liked her and how nice she had been and how awesome little me thought she was. It wasn’t possible to talk with her, and I had no intention of approaching when she was surrounded by family. But that was a signature experience for me. I hope someday I see her again and I can tell her about that, especially now. I wouldn’t have seen her had I not smelled that scent again. And maybe she’ll tell me what it is. But I kind of hope she doesn’t. The mystery, the signature, would be lost if someone else could capture it.

And that would ruin the magic.

Smell is magic. It really and truly is. How can something we all experience every day be so without description? How can it make us remember in the way that nothing else can? How can it trigger emotions and memories, speak words we can’t say and help us understand what is not said?

How can losing something we can’t describe and don’t understand and take for granted be so hard to describe and be so very overwhelming?

Magic, I tell you. Just plain simple magic.

And the more I learn, through reading and experience, the more magical it is.

Here’s hoping I get that magic back into my life. I’ll never take it for granted again.

High: The spice of my Spanish rice last night was spicy enough that I could feel it. I’m learning that I need to describe things better—I can feel spice, taste salt, taste sweet, feel tartness and mint, etc…

Low: Remembering what smell was like is fading. I can’t remember as clearly anymore. The scent/taste of my current nothingness is beginning to take over, and that’s really hard.

High: One of our doctors tried to play a prank on me with gag breath mints. Joke’s on him, it didn’t work. I told him I might have been sucking on Tylenol for all I knew. But my colleagues were not so lucky. Apparently, onion ring flavored breath mints are quite disgusting. In case you were curious.

People keep telling me they think I’m getting better. I’m glad they think so. But all it takes is for one of them to make me smell something for me to assure them that smell is not getting better. Yet. I always add in yet. Because there is always hope, even if they say there isn’t. What is getting better is my ability to understand and describe things. I am adapting. I am learning. So, really, I am getting better. Just not in the way they mean. But better is better, right? Of course, right.

Here’s a snippet from my new book, Season to Taste by Molly Birnbaum: “[Smell] doesn’t involve category or generality. Smell is such a different sense, because the molecules come into the body, and then they go out. You experience it immediately by its nature. To describe a smell, words are abstract. Smell is so particular—it’s the most particular configuration of molecules that makes coffee or body odor or acetone. No wonder it’s figurative most of the time.”

So true, my friends. So true. Read the book. It's amazing. And no one is paying me for saying that.
But maybe they should...