I heard a story on NPR where a woman described how she lost her sense of smell and then, what she felt when it came back. Naturally, she was very emotional about both experiences. She could hardly even attract sympathy coz’ it is a hidden disability. No one asked her “How she was” even after they knew (if they remembered) what happened to her.
Made me think about things we smell, in a day, and take for granted.
- Coffee - as a coffee lover I can vouch that (for me) smell of coffee is twice as important as its taste. Would ruin my love for the beverage if it had no smell.
- Vanity - vanilla shampoo, favorite soap, perfume. lack of smell will force you to save money as it sucks out the joy out of those things.
- Nature – oh my GOD…flowers, seasons, rain, dew, flowers (can’t get over it), woods…so much is in the scents and smells.
- Food – citrus, spices, fresh fruit, garlic. Smell tells you when something is cooked and when something is burnt and most important when something has gone bad! Everything we eat, we smell first. The only silver lining is that you can drink without having to change a thing (maybe not wines though).
- Random but sweet – fresh cut grass, ocean, bonfire, old books, baby’s smell, candles, Christmas tree.
- Practical – sweat, when you know things need serious cleaning, burning of things.
- Only good thing – don’t have to smell foul things…coz’ you can’t. Bad toilets, bad food, bad breadth…
Some people in this world can actually smell the sounds! As crazy as it sounds (ha-ha), there are people who can associated smell to each syllable. There’s a distinct and specific smell for every word they hear.
We take this ‘sense’ so lightly. Imagine the brain activity around it. To smell something and run through the files to distinguish it, to memorize it and store it – how flawlessly genius is that? ‘Flavor’ is only complete when we add smell to it. Tongue can only taste five things…nose can detect hundreds of smells.
As I can only imagine, when the lady in NPR story got her olfactory working, she was so overwhelmed that she thought she was hallucinating. And then she smelled her favorite flower – lilac!
Smell, smell all you can and savor it.
