My Favorite Smells

I've heard from several places that your sense of smell is the one most closely allied with memory. I think it has something to do with proximity in the brain or something (I'm not a neurologist so that could all be bunk--who knows?) At any rate, here's a list of smells that I just LOVE. Some are pretty normal and will get some agreement and then there are a few that might give too much away and you'll be convinced I'm whacked.

Ah well, I'll take the risk.

1. Real Grapefruit. I love cooking with limes, when I cut them I always pause to take a sniff, and mandarin oranges are Christmas all over but my favorite citrus is grapefruit. I probably like the smell of a tree-ripened grapefruit because it reminds me of visiting my grandparents in Chandler, Arizona when I was younger. They had a tree in their back yard and Grandpa taught me how to eat a grapefruit properly--peeled and salted. They used to store the extras under their bed in boxes and the smell will always connect me to their house.

2. Potting soil. Cracking open a bag of this stuff and getting the familiar whiff of charcoal and peat is like going back to page in a book I've read many times before. It's the rituals of planting and preparing that get me going and somehow that potting soil triggers it. Odd.

3. Rosemary. I have a little rosemary tree that I've trained into a topiary and the piney-woodsy-mediciney smell is addicting. I can't imagine what it's like to live in a place where it grows wild and you brush by it as you walk.

4. Plumeria. While we're on the subject of plants I've got to list plumeria. This flower smells just amazing and it's one of my favorite things about Hawaii. When I smell it I'm in the islands and I even feel warmer--I always take back extra flowers after a vacation just to save in the fridge and sniff at will.

5. Line-dried clothing. Oh I've written about this before so I won't bore you here but this is the essence of summer.

6. Airports. I really get a kick from the smell of airports. It's a funny mix of cigarette smoke, cleaners, and other things I can't name--and it's not that I like those things normally but mixed together in that unique way they are very definitive. There's an "airport" smell just as there is a "new car" smell or a smell to each person's house. I think I like it because whenever I'm at an airport I'm full of anticipation, looking forward to travel or to meeting someone I love--that must be it. Either that or I was a smoker in a former life.

7. Ski resorts. Speaking of cigarettes this next smell is a little harder to define (and a little weirder) but it's a favorite none the less. When it's winter and it's not too cold, still below freezing but not so cold it couldn't snow, and there's a bit of sun and I'm outside sometimes the air smells just right so that it takes me back to days of skiing. Again, it's a touch of cigarette from somebody on the chair lift ahead of you catching a smoke on the way up plus the cold frost of winter and the smells of people that all mix together and creates the smell that reminds me of those fun days on the slopes. I was walking through the parking lot at Costco last week and caught a touch of it in the air and suddenly I was standing in line, waiting for my ride up the mountain.

8. Birch blossoms. Can I switch seasons here for a minute? There's a two or three day period each spring when all the birch trees bloom here. Well bloom isn't quite the right word, they don't have flowers but "leave" certainly isn't the right word so it'll have to do. Whatever, but it's the day when the leaves uncurl and the fresh sap it everywhere in the air and it tells my brain that I've done it--I've made it through another Alaskan winter and have three months of fabulous weather to look forward to. Of course I sneeze like crazy those two or three days but the smell is worth it.

9. Rain. Boy this is a great smell--and I think I like it all the more when it hasn't actually rained yet, it just smells like it's going to rain. Makes me feel like I can tell the future or something--Michelle the Omniscient or something like that.

10. Hospitals. Okay I've led you along for awhile and here's where I get weird--I know most people hate the smell of hospitals but it's all in the memory I suppose. To me, the hospital antiseptic smell reminds me of when my children were born and all the feelings that accompanied those events. Maybe if I'd had more experience with death and prolonged sicknesses hospitals wouldn't make me nostalgic they make me depressed but for now I'll just be glad for the experiences I've had.

11. Crayons. Tell me you don't take a sniff every time you open a box! Yea, I thought so.

12. Tomato plants. Not tomatoes--though, hey I love the smell of a pizza as much as the next pasta-provolone-and-pesto lovin gal--no, the plants themselves are what do it for me. They smell completely different from the fruit and I can't quite put my finger on how to describe them. Minty? No. Piney? No. But though I can't describe it I know it when I smell it and I love it. I'll sit in the sun on my back deck with the potted tomato plants next to me and I'll wrinkle the leaves occasionally just to get the aroma. Yum.

13. My dusty skin. This is probably just the weirdest thing but you know when you've been out in the sun for any length of time it does something to you and makes you smell a certain way? Maybe it's a bit of sweat or maybe the dust in the air or whatever (please don't tell me I'm the only one who smells this way) but if I come in and wash my hands and arms after working in the garden my skin gives off a certain smell, like its been baked. Even if I was outside the day before, when I wake up in the morning and go to take a shower the dusty smell is there when my hair gets wet. Okay that's just too personal but it's the official smell of summer and will always be a favorite.

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