Smell

I had the illusion as a child that I had no sense of smell. Identified with my granny who had very little sense of smell due to some turn of the century medical intervention, and when her hearing got bad it was rather funny that she thought her loud and odoriferous farts were unnoticed. Or perhaps it came of living in Detroit, the pollution, and our coal furnace with humidity led to much nasal congestion. The reek from Zug Island, an industrial island in the Detroit River that glowed on my small horizon. I remember snot as an integral part of my childhood. My perception of being smell-less is not accurate, since I remember many odors and aromas, mostly bad. My father's cigar, onion breath and factory sweat smell, or hot coffee on shredded wheat reminiscent of wet dog. Engine oils as I held a worklight and was raged at by my unsatisfiable father. Bad smell, bad emotions.

The good smells were isloated, rare treats. My Uncle Walt's pipe smoke was woody rose, and I loved it, I associate it with knowledge and intelligence, as he would tell me about ships and planes and engineering and science, whatever came to his mind. Church incense, spicy and stinging, holidays and hope. My mother's baking, sweet and nutty, leading to holidays and a house full of aunts and uncles and cousins. Aromas of connection and warmth.

There were blizzards, when the snow piled up taller than small me, and the smell of the snow, clean and sharp surrounding. Or maple leaves in piles of reds and golds, earthy, sweet, dusty and warm in my nose. Once in particular, a hollow in the Irish hills- I turned summersaults into endlessly deep piles, swam in pools of autumn leaves with both dry and moldy odors together. I would, at 19, sit in a christmas-tree piney woods, on an upturned rowboat at midnight, a foot of snow on the ground, more laying down heavily in the deep darkness. In that wet cold blackness, with only the woody, damp white smell that enveloped me, I would feel warm and safe and leave behind forever my fear of the dark.
A wrong turn. Budweiser vomit. Later Vodka, but not mine this time. Cleaning up someone else's mess, and a lifelong aversion to vodka. The odor of defeat.

Better: beer, good beer, round and bitter, surrounded by friendly people, and clove cigarettes. I smoked one year, rebelled self destructively. I was burning away bad choices with bad habits. I didn't care if I survived. The smell of cloves cigarettes at concerts still reminds me of my potent if tardy rebellion.

The taste of Saudi Arabian dust in my nose, camel shit aerosolized, Army smells. Mothballs of Army issued clothing, wet temper-tent, floor wax, gun oil and gunpowder, Kiwi shoe polish. Spam and reconstituted eggs, the same smell for the best meal of my life- the first hot, adequate meal in four days of travel, and innumerable very bad ones when I was not hungry enough.

Medical smells: aromas, stinks and stenches, turned into diagnoses, without emotional content. I really do know shit, healthy shit is just a smell to me now, without quality of good or bad. I detect decay, illness, blood, cancer, rot. Prostate surgery, because it is a hormonal gland, had a particular and cuttingly nauseating odor, that I can no longer smell. Only liver cancers still really upset my gut. Peppermint or wintergreen swiped on a mask to stop the stench of dead bowel, sickening instinctive repulsion. Acetone breath of a diabetic, anxious sweat, fasting breath, the oozy smell of fever. The dump of jet fuel means Life Flight is taking off, and there may be a trauma later. Anesthetic gasses waft, bone cement attacks, autoclave heat puffs wetly. Informative smells, data.

The aroma of savory sausages, winter stews. Wonder Bread bakeries, giving away the only good part. Eastern Market, rotting vegetables, and spices, teas and nuts on a busy Saturday morning, reinterpreted now at Haymarket- fruits, vegetable, fish, all crowded with the world's people. The sweet warmth of early spring days. Japanese incense. Lake reek in Salt Lake when the wind came from the west, often followed by rain or snow. Fog in the Boston morning now. Tang of an approaching thunderstorm. Evening sea breeze. Breathing in the world, sure now of my sense of smell.

The smells of home and D, his orange musky scent, subtle in the winter, strong and sweaty in the summer, the smell of home and love. The smell of the right road, when I am head down and can't see where I am. The odor of blessing. Breathing deeply.