Olfactory Power

I know, slightly odd title for a blog post, but it will make more sense by the end I hope.  For whatever reason, I always get drawn back to the overarching power of our olfactory sense, our ability to detect different scents in the world around us, catalog them, and dredge them up later.  I find that my olfactory sense has a greater ability to awaken certain memories than any other sense I have.  While my eyesight is almost perfect, and there are many times when I get a slight sense of deja vu through what I see, it doesn't bring back a flood of mental images and feelings.  My hearing, while good, does not offer the same sort of stimulus to my memory that my olfactory sense does.  I recognize voices, certain sounds may bring a slight arousal of past memories, but they all pale in comparison to the flood that I receive when a certain smell invades my nostrils.  The olfactory sense fascinates me in how it functions, how certain smells affect us differently, and what each person's olfactory sense means to them.  If I can't figure out the world around me through any other means, I smell it.  It may sound insanely weird to most people, but even if I am walking in the woods and I catch a faint aroma wafting through the air that reminds me of something, I stop, close my eyes, and inhale deeper.  Most times when I am in the woods hiking, the smells that affect me are those of decomposing leaves, fresh pine, and stagnant water.  While these may not seem like pleasurable smells to most people, they awaken in me a deep longing to remain in the woods.  It goes deeper than that though, it has the ability to transport me back to my youth and my countless days spent in the woods, around fresh pine and decomposing leaves, and of course, the stagnant water.  I can close my eyes and drift back to almost any time I have spent in the woods, whether it was in the backyard of my parents house or in the woods in California.  Sometimes the memories blend together, but no matter how they refresh themselves, they are vivid and permanent.  Its not just the smell of the woods that appeals to me and brings back memories of days past.  There is so much more that affects me in the olfactory sort of way.

Perhaps one of the most vivid images and memories that comes flooding back to me is of Spain and my trip there in high school.  This may be an odd association, but back then I used to love Abercrombie and Fitch cologne, the original, and used to carry it with me almost every where I went.  Well, I had it on my trip to Spain and every time I catch a whiff of that scent, the memories are sometimes overwhelming.  I can remember certain streets that I walked down, not the names or anything, just images that come coursing through.  I remember Madrid, and the museums, I remember Seville and the Jewish quarter that seemed so romantic, I remember Barcelona and its unique architecture.  There is so much that gets dredged up just from a one week trip because of the smell of A&F cologne.  It amazes me sometimes how much power certain smells have in re-vitalizing memories.  Sometimes it is not necessarily specific memories that get brought up for me, but rather notions of places I have been, a feeling of being somewhere even though I am not, a transportation if you will that takes place briefly in my mind.  One of the smells most capable of doing this to me is the sweet smell of diesel fumes.  I know, how in the world can such a noxious smell have the ability to bring back pleasurable feelings and transport me briefly, even if only in my mind, to another place?  I don't know, but there has always been something unique about the smell of diesel fumes affects me deeply.  It is probably due to a good amount of time spent down in New York City.  I have been heading down there either with my parents and family or with friends ever since I was little.  Anyone who has been down to the city will probably tell you that it is hard to walk a block without catching a whiff of diesel fumes.  Even if I am driving down the road in Connecticut, far from the hustle and bustle of the city and I smell diesel fumes, I immediately think of New York City.  Or at least some city.  My mind usually goes to New York because that is the city I have spent the most time in compared to any other large metropolis.  I enjoy those little glimpses of the city that rush through my mind, and to a certain extent, I briefly enjoy catching the scent of diesel fumes.  Weird, I know, but each of us has different smells that affect us in different ways. 

I could go on and on about the different smells that are dear to my heart and the images that come flooding back whenever I smell them, but I won't.  A few should suffice to drive my point across about the power of the olfactory sense and how it affects me.  To be honest, I don't know what I would do without my sense of smell.  Obviously it is there for a reason, both to alert us to danger and to alert us and attract us to objects that smell good.  Since we are on the topic of smell, I have to throw one more thing out there that on the flip side of the olfactory sense, annoys me.  As I have a fairly sensitive nose, not overly discerning in what I can detect, but merely sensitive in the fact that I can smell a lot and from a great distance, I absolutely despise when people are in close proximity to me, talking to me, and their breath smells.  There are times when I catch a horrible whiff of their previous meal or some noxious drink they had and get totally turned off.  Many times I try and position myself so that as they are talking they are not talking directly to my face and blasting my nose with all their vile breath.  OK, got that off my chest.  Its just annoying sometimes, yet it is a good thing in the sense that it always makes me aware of my breath, how it smells, and how it could affect others.  However smell affects me, for good or for bad, it is my most powerful sense and I could not live without it.  What about you?  Do you find your olfactory sense to be the most powerful or is there another one that trumps it?  If your olfactory sense is your most powerful, what does it mean to you?  How does it affect you?  Just curious.