Smells

1 January 2005

When you step off the plane onto the jetway, or climb down from the train, or clamber out of the car into a new place, the first thing you should do is to take a deep breath. You may know about the therapeutic effects of a deep breath especially if that inhalation accompanies a good long stretch. You may know how a rib-expanding breath can crack the spine that has known only a poorly-cushioned seat for the last eight or ten hours. You may have your own experiential reasons why you would, as I do, take a deep breath in a new place. But I have a different (if not exclusive) reason for taking that breath. Smell.

In spite of our cultural addiction to coffee and bathroom candles, the human sense of smell seems to be one of the lesser developed and appreciated of the five senses. Visual and auditory stimuli take front and centre in our media culture. Tactile sensations beckon from massage parlours and the front of stadium speakers. Glottal impressions imprint their values upon us at least three times a day—often more frequently. But the sense of smell receives a second place to the firsts of the other four. Televisions and computers neglect it; masseurs cannot finger our olfactory nodes; and the speed of our culture whisks food past the nose and into the stomach. Only the Body Shop and les entrepreneurs de parfum (who peddle aroma in a clumsy attempt to abstract its allure with screen and speakers) seem to receive the gift of the nose with proper respect.

This neglect strikes me as counter-intuitive. The sense of smell has some of the strongest attachments to the profound unspeakable emotions of the soul; it is capable of conjuring images in the mind by a single waft that would require a thousand brush strokes or a hundred spoken words. The scent of cologne can invoke the full depth of a child’s relationship with his father. The aroma of meatloaf can enfold the heart with a sense of home and a mother’s love. The smell of a hospital hallway can shock the heart to palpitations and the flesh to a nervous sweat. The scent of a first girlfriend’s hair or of the intimacy of a spouse can bring whole relationships to the surface with a thousand memories and a hundred emotions. Of the five senses the sense of smell holds the most secret power, able to brush the core of human being as a breeze brushes the cheek.

Yet the olfactory function of the nose and brain persist as profound and powerful interpreters of our environment. And so, I say, as we arrive in a new place we should take in a deep breath and all the scents such a breath will bring. For places have their own scents, so complex and intimate that we may perceive another dimension of our lives by paying attention to them. And the time passes so quickly in which these scents are new, for so rapidly our nostrils become accommodated to the slight nuances of aerial flavour and harmonies of aroma fall into a flat monotone backdrop. Take the opportunity, early on, to catch the scent of a place.

We arrived in Burbank, California today, to stay in Pasadena for three days before our flight to New Zealand. As we left the sterile environs of the airport terminal I took a deep breath. There was moisture in the air, wetness from the winter rains of southern California. The wetness bore the rich, strong leafiness of this plant-filled state, an odour of soil and chlorophyll. Woven into this tapestry of phyllophilic essence was the greasy aroma of petroleum emissions and vulcanized rubber that accompanied humanity into this once-desert environment. Burbank has its own smell, as distinctive as a Calvin Klein parfum but with deeper images than the model-studded billboards can offer.

Burbank is not like Kona, Hawai’i. Taking a deep breath on the Big Island fills the lungs and caresses the soul with a different aerial poem. The air in Kona hangs heavier about you, laden with the broad moisture of humid tropics. The leafiness is there, but darker, thicker, and more robust yet with thin threads of light fruitiness woven in. The aroma of that island is seedy, pregnant with coming growth like fresh potting soil though more colourful than that of any garden store. It is a mother-land in which the ever-ready rain in the air tells of warm fertility.

Neither of these two places is like the scent of New York City. There the sticky odour of asphalt and rubber tickles your nostrils with a sour overtone of hot steel. Invisible clouds of exhaust assault your glands with pockets of acrid bitterness. Eastern Pennsylvania farmland is still different. In the summertime the rich coolness of grass massages the nostrils with a soft welcome. In the autumn sour swirls arise from wet brown leaves and the winds carry the dry bland sweetness of cut cornstalks.

You must listen to your nose to catch it all, though. As I step out of the terminal in Burbank, California I wonder what the scent of New Zealand will be. For all the pictures I’ve seen, nature programs I’ve heard, and travel book restaurant reviews I’ve read, I have no idea how the place will smell. I can’t wait to step off the plane and take that first deep breath.

~ em