There is nothing so condescendingly colonial as chronicling the smells
of whatever country one visits. But there is also nothing so peculiarly
descriptive either, and for sheer world-building, smells are often the most
evocative. A year ago I described Kuwait as looking like "a traffic jam,"
which was the best I could do to provide an image from all angles--
metonymy, metaphor, and synecdoche. I said it felt like old cardboard
boxes left for years in a garage and tastes like rotisserie chicken. I also said it smelled like pavement on the outside and cologne on the inside. That is all kind of accurate even after a year, but the smell needs more elaboration.
So my project here is to take us through the regular smells of a morning, starting with waking up and ending at 8:00 am. And just so you know, if you are ever in despair, taking note of regular smells is a rejuvenating, often humanizing activity. They say that "happy people" are content to count small pleasures or at least count small moments as grace, and what if not smell?
6:15: I wake up, smell nothing because my nose has crusted over from the high-powered, liquid-killing air conditioning that makes our nights comfortable but our noses feel like the rock guy from Fantastic Four.
6:20: I enter the shower, smell the faint mildew that I haven't yet localized and zapped. I have scrubbed our bathroom from corner to top, trying to find the mildew culprit, but I have a feeling it comes from a drain dweller. I should remind you that our building has not yet celebrated its first year of existence.
6:23: I shampoo, smell dandruff-zapping chemicals, which smell faintly of ammonia.
6:25: I lather, smell what those at Dove have told me that men should smell like, even if I don't quite believe them.
6:26: I dry, smell towell, which, on a good day, doesn't smell.
6:30: I hug Henry, smell morning person smell. It is pleasant and calming, like the balm of Gilead.
6:35: I cook eggs, smell frying butter.
So my project here is to take us through the regular smells of a morning, starting with waking up and ending at 8:00 am. And just so you know, if you are ever in despair, taking note of regular smells is a rejuvenating, often humanizing activity. They say that "happy people" are content to count small pleasures or at least count small moments as grace, and what if not smell?
6:15: I wake up, smell nothing because my nose has crusted over from the high-powered, liquid-killing air conditioning that makes our nights comfortable but our noses feel like the rock guy from Fantastic Four.
6:20: I enter the shower, smell the faint mildew that I haven't yet localized and zapped. I have scrubbed our bathroom from corner to top, trying to find the mildew culprit, but I have a feeling it comes from a drain dweller. I should remind you that our building has not yet celebrated its first year of existence.
6:23: I shampoo, smell dandruff-zapping chemicals, which smell faintly of ammonia.
6:25: I lather, smell what those at Dove have told me that men should smell like, even if I don't quite believe them.
6:26: I dry, smell towell, which, on a good day, doesn't smell.
6:30: I hug Henry, smell morning person smell. It is pleasant and calming, like the balm of Gilead.
6:35: I cook eggs, smell frying butter.
6:37: I hug Calvin, smell small child smell--anything between ripe bananas
and cheerios.
6:40: I go wake up Maria, smell night person smell, infinitely more pungent than morning person smell, but still pleasant, endearing, and prodigal.
6:43: I brush teeth, smell orange peppermint, which goes in the mouth smelling one way, and goes out smelling a different way. I have a reserve of mints in my office drawer to mitigate the orange peppermint that was lost in translation.
6:47: I make lunches, smell peanut butter and sliced apples, which is perhaps the most enticing smell of the day, even better than the homemade bread that I am toasting.
6:57: I put on my shoes, smell dirty leather and the last ironically untarnished
pleasant smell of the day.
7:00: I step on the street, smell cement mix, heavy on the fine dust and without moisture.
7:02: I walk by a small traffic jam on a corner, smell the exhaust of several cars at once: like hot death.
7:03: Speaking of hot death, I walk kitty corner from traffic jam, smell cat--dead--a smell that is as terrifying as any I can think of, including the always fear-inducing smell of heavy sodium. Dead cat smell, so common to our street, combines rot and feces and old milk in a way that can instantly depress, as if the chemical imbalance in the air quickly induces a chemical imbalance in your brain, as if the smell bypasses the nose and goes straight to your gray matter, enclosing it in an aura of demonic filth. The smell is a noseworm, running the horrible but inescapable melody of diseased cat through your deep recesses, when eventually all you can see is a dirty spotted cat with pink eye over and over in close up. The dead cat smell doubles you over in the dry heave of nihilism, clenches your loins in a cramp of horror. When expats speak of depression, they are
6:40: I go wake up Maria, smell night person smell, infinitely more pungent than morning person smell, but still pleasant, endearing, and prodigal.
6:43: I brush teeth, smell orange peppermint, which goes in the mouth smelling one way, and goes out smelling a different way. I have a reserve of mints in my office drawer to mitigate the orange peppermint that was lost in translation.
6:47: I make lunches, smell peanut butter and sliced apples, which is perhaps the most enticing smell of the day, even better than the homemade bread that I am toasting.
6:57: I put on my shoes, smell dirty leather and the last ironically untarnished
pleasant smell of the day.
7:00: I step on the street, smell cement mix, heavy on the fine dust and without moisture.
7:02: I walk by a small traffic jam on a corner, smell the exhaust of several cars at once: like hot death.
7:03: Speaking of hot death, I walk kitty corner from traffic jam, smell cat--dead--a smell that is as terrifying as any I can think of, including the always fear-inducing smell of heavy sodium. Dead cat smell, so common to our street, combines rot and feces and old milk in a way that can instantly depress, as if the chemical imbalance in the air quickly induces a chemical imbalance in your brain, as if the smell bypasses the nose and goes straight to your gray matter, enclosing it in an aura of demonic filth. The smell is a noseworm, running the horrible but inescapable melody of diseased cat through your deep recesses, when eventually all you can see is a dirty spotted cat with pink eye over and over in close up. The dead cat smell doubles you over in the dry heave of nihilism, clenches your loins in a cramp of horror. When expats speak of depression, they are
really only speaking of dead cat smell.
7:05: I pass the dumpster, smell yesterday's shawerma, which might have killed the cat but pulls me out of the dead-cat-induced existential abyss and into the reality of material culture. Yesterday's shawerma smells of oil and garlic combined with browning parsley, which is unpleasant, sure, but is viscerally of this world. It is the residue of something that was once fresh and once offered pleasure, it is the promise of biodegradable resurrection, whereas the dead cat, which you, and I, are still trying to expunge, is the threat that any resurrection is actually full of bile and emptiness. Despite the ancient Egyptian belief in the sanctity of cats, especially dead ones (could that be the Egyptian idea of immortality? to erase the death of a cat is to erase all that terrifies us about existence? Should I pursue this thesis as a research project?), the dead cat smell has to be buried itself, and the shawerma might be able to perform it as a rite of culture. At any rate, yesterday's shawerma is today's solution to darkness.
7:07: I enter the school gates, smell hot turf, which combines the smells of newly laid asphalt and burning plastic.
7:09: I enter my building, smell imitation Pledge mixed with chlorinated water.
7:10: I enter the elevator with security guard, smell this morning's, or last night's, falafel. I smile and nod with the compatriotism that only early morning workers share.
7:11: I get off the elevator, smell unfamiliar B.O. emanating from two to three men with ladders. This B.O. is recognizingly B.O. but has the hint of a completely different diet that my nose immediately understands as beyond my realm of everyday experience, which is why it is noticed. I wonder, at that moment, why there has never been a book, or at least an essay, called "Smelling a Contact Zone."
7:12: I enter my office, smell stale electronics.
8:00: I enter the classroom, smell the forceful mix of lotion, cologne, and second-hand smoke. I am reminded of a hair salon, but this has an angrier smell to it without the distinct burning hair aroma. The lotion rarely takes over, but offers a backdrop for when I am desensitized to the second-hand smoke and sufficiently high from the cologne. Then it just smells like promise.
7:05: I pass the dumpster, smell yesterday's shawerma, which might have killed the cat but pulls me out of the dead-cat-induced existential abyss and into the reality of material culture. Yesterday's shawerma smells of oil and garlic combined with browning parsley, which is unpleasant, sure, but is viscerally of this world. It is the residue of something that was once fresh and once offered pleasure, it is the promise of biodegradable resurrection, whereas the dead cat, which you, and I, are still trying to expunge, is the threat that any resurrection is actually full of bile and emptiness. Despite the ancient Egyptian belief in the sanctity of cats, especially dead ones (could that be the Egyptian idea of immortality? to erase the death of a cat is to erase all that terrifies us about existence? Should I pursue this thesis as a research project?), the dead cat smell has to be buried itself, and the shawerma might be able to perform it as a rite of culture. At any rate, yesterday's shawerma is today's solution to darkness.
7:07: I enter the school gates, smell hot turf, which combines the smells of newly laid asphalt and burning plastic.
7:09: I enter my building, smell imitation Pledge mixed with chlorinated water.
7:10: I enter the elevator with security guard, smell this morning's, or last night's, falafel. I smile and nod with the compatriotism that only early morning workers share.
7:11: I get off the elevator, smell unfamiliar B.O. emanating from two to three men with ladders. This B.O. is recognizingly B.O. but has the hint of a completely different diet that my nose immediately understands as beyond my realm of everyday experience, which is why it is noticed. I wonder, at that moment, why there has never been a book, or at least an essay, called "Smelling a Contact Zone."
7:12: I enter my office, smell stale electronics.
8:00: I enter the classroom, smell the forceful mix of lotion, cologne, and second-hand smoke. I am reminded of a hair salon, but this has an angrier smell to it without the distinct burning hair aroma. The lotion rarely takes over, but offers a backdrop for when I am desensitized to the second-hand smoke and sufficiently high from the cologne. Then it just smells like promise.
You should have been in the mountains above Durango with me this weekend, and you could have had the pleasure of the rotten ketchup smell, which has evolved into an intelligent force that can trigger itself after only one night of camping with no camping food. One of life's great mysteries.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess I was gone that day that you scrubbed every inch of the shower...
ReplyDelete-Kathryn