Somehow in the the last 50 years, we have been brainwashed to believe that no smell equals status; a sanitized home is a sign that we have made it, that we have conquered nature and all its unmanagable assaults on our senses. But recently it has occurred to me that it is not just our sense of smell that we are providing with a clean (BLANK) slate, but our other senses as well. I have begun to think that maybe by banishing the real world of smells from our daily landscape, we also arrest our happiness which depends on all senses to craft the memories which anchor us. We are constantly barraged with temptations to adopt a goal of "living well" with all the elegance of Martha but none of the gritty and memorable fun of a real experience. We have been tricked into thinking we can control our environment and too often give up the deliciously dangerous world of bee stings and mud and manure.
This summer spend a day in the mall, then another on a farm. I can bet which one your brain is more likely to store away and revisit on a cold winter day. I can't remember a single day I've spent at the mall, although I often comment that I wish my house smelled like Origins and always inhale deeply while passing Abercrombie. These shops smell great, but these manufactured scents are not connected to my life or memory bank and 50 years from now it will be the smell of manure and hay that take me back to hours spent waiting for the birth of a new goat kid or piglet. Those "bad smells" will work their magic like no other can.
In an August 2011 editorial in Cook's Magazine, Christopher Kimball wrote, "One experiment asked participants to sniff 10 common household odors and then to identify them; most correctly matched up fewer than half. Perhaps that's because our brains are given such lousy material to work with; laundry detergent doesn't make much of an impression...As a kid in Vermont, however, I collected unforgettable memories: the aching cold of a swimming pond, the sweet smell of fern dappled wetland, a good snort of wood smoke drifting through the first cold October evening, the wet vanilla and caramel steam from a sugarhouse, the scent of a workhorse-all dried sweat, heat and manure-and afternoon light filtered though spider-webbed, fly-specked windows of the dairy barn. There was nothing between sensation and memory: the senses smashed headlong into the mind, burying deep, leaving immutable patterns of smells, sights, sights, tastes and sounds.
The modern world, however, filters the pleasure of living through infinite layers...Unhappiness steps through the door when we find ourselves removed from the world, from the shock and pleasure of the five senses. Thats' why we cook, to remind ourselves that we are alive...Living with zero degrees of separation entails risk-yes, that glass of raw milk may contain pathogens-but nothing worth doing is entirely risk-free."
So the next time company swings by I will not rush around with a bottle of Febreze but instead will welcome them into the kitchen (which will likely smell like cheese curds) and the barn (which will smell like manure) and perhaps this will be my gift to the visitor and myself...a good stiff wiff of a simpler time, not too far out of our reach if we are willing to step into the wonderfully messy world.
Be careful. This is so poignant that all of us will be stopping at your home to get back in touch with the sights, touches, and aromas of your lovely farm--and yesterday, but hopefully not on the same afternoon! But, we'll bring a snack to share, just in case...
ReplyDeleteThis really speaks to me, Hope. You are absolutely right on-I love it! Just ask Marcel Proust.
ReplyDeleteLynne Crytser
Lynne, I can't stop thinking about this idea and it keeps popping up everywhere. It seems important to taking back what's best about being human! After reading your comment I searched Proust and smell and found this lovely quote...
ReplyDeleteBut humans "see" the world largely through eyes and ears. We neglect the sense of smell—and often suppress our awareness of what our nose tells us. Many of us have been taught that there is something shameful about odors.
Yet mothers can recognize their babies by smell, and newborns recognize their mothers in the same way. The smells that surround us affect our well-being throughout our lives.
Smells also retain an uncanny power to move us. A whiff of pipe tobacco, a particular perfume, or a long-forgotten scent can instantly conjure up scenes and emotions from the past. Many writers and artists have marveled at the haunting quality of such memories.
In The Remembrance of Things Past, French novelist Marcel Proust described what happened to him after drinking a spoonful of tea in which he had soaked a piece of madeleine, a type of cake: "No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me," he wrote. "An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses...with no suggestion of its origin...
"Suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was of a little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings...my Aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea....Immediately the old gray house on the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set...and the entire town, with its people and houses, gardens, church, and surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being from my cup of tea."
Just seeing the madeleine had not brought back these memories, Proust noted. He needed to taste and smell it. "When nothing else subsists from the past," he wrote, "after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered...the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls...bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory."
Thanks for sending me in search of these delicious words! Hope you are doing well.