Ponderisms on the Olfactory System

They say sense of smell is one of the most powerful of the five (six?) senses. Some of the most powerfully vivid memories can be triggered by a scent on the breeze. A certain cologne or hand lotion can bring back distinct images and emotions. Sometimes the feeling of remembering can be so strong that it overwhelms the other senses, and it come so quickly it's easy to be blindsided.

Several years ago, I was riding on a bus from Metrotown to my dorm when someone climbed onboard. The breeze from the door pushed the air towards the back of the bus, and with it, a cologne. I have no idea what cologne it was, but I knew it. I was suddenly thrown back to a moment, sitting in a car, driving in Glasgow with a friend. The next thing I knew the bus stopped at the next sign and a new breeze took the cologne away and I was brought back to reality. But for that moment, I was IN Scotland. A troupe of hyenas could have climbed onto the bus and done a reading from The Merchant of Venice and I wouldn't have noticed. I was consumed by the memory for the brief moment.

This morning I used a hand lotion from upstairs at work. As soon as I massaged it into my painfully dry hands the scent struck me like a ton of bricks. I was suddenly reminded of something...but I can't put my finger on the specifics. It has to do with the time period when I was living in the apartment with Vicky. Like trying to remember a name that's on the tip of your tongue, I can't quite grab the memory. It's floating there and comes closer whenever I breathe deeply, but I can't grasp it.

A good friend of mine at BCIT has no sense of smell. As one of our projects in copywriting, we had to come up with ads playing into each of the five senses. After class he went to our instructor and told her he has no sense of smell and has no idea how to write about it when he's never experienced it. Even though I try never to feel bad for anyone who has something different in their life (can you miss something you've never experienced?), I found my heart going out to him.

Last week Ashley and I got into a discussion about a movie she had seen called Perfume in which a young perfume apprentice who was born with the most sensitive sense of smell tries to capture the smell of a beautiful women (ultimately by killing them, but that's not the point). She told me, during a moment in the movie, he realized he himself had no scent, and because of that, he could never be loved. It seemed like an interesting theory. But that, in turn, implies that those with no sense of smell, or an impaired sense of smell cannot love. It also implies that as we get older and our senses dull, we have less capacity for love.

Anyway, those are my ponderisms for the day.