Macular degeneration began when I was 15, and it seems clear, unlike my vision, that I’ll soon require bifocals. Meanwhile, my wife says she’s going to get me a hearing aid for Christmas every year, though she has yet to deliver, no matter how many times I ask her to repeat herself.
My sense of smell, though, is going strong. While my eyes and ears fail, I’m thankful for my strong sniffer. I still have a brightly burning olfactory bulb, the area of the brain that processes — and archives — scents, essentially linking them to memories.
Can you catch a whiff of something and automatically take a mental vacation? A part of that bulb is at work.
I got to thinking about this as Thanksgiving approached. The smell of Thanksgiving dinner, wherever it’s being served, puts me at a little card table off to the side of my grandparents’ dining room, where my brother and I ate on Turkey Day when we were kids — the thick aroma of the roasted bird, dressing balls, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and secondhand cigarette smoke filling my nostrils.
Even outside of Thanksgiving, my grandparents’ house had a distinct smell that I’ll never forget. I also detect a trace of it today when I visit my parents’ place.
It might mostly be moth balls.
That pungent scent of moth balls was present in my grandparents’ attic, where linens and such were stored. Their main floor usually smelled like whatever Grandma was cooking in her tiny kitchen, because she seemed always to be cooking. The basement (or “cellar ,” in their vernacular) was different, too: It smelled to me of ancient furniture. Because that’s what was down there.
Blend all of those together and that was the distinct scent of their warm little house that I so loved.
If someone made an air freshener out of it, I’d stock up.
As for our house, when we return home in the summer after being gone for a week, the smell we open the door to strikes me as off-putting. And I worry that’s what we smell like to anyone who stops by. Maybe that’s why people don’t visit more often. The odor makes me think of our vacuum cleaner canister, choked with dust and dander from a giant, dirty dog.
Makes me want to scrub the house, or maybe give the good boy his yearly bath.
Instead, I just light a scented candle. We have those for every possible occasion. Even our son asks to burn them. Maybe that’s because he also doesn’t like the way our house smells.
During the weekend shopping trips my wife drags us on so she can become enchanted by the air of clothing stores, my son and I visit any shop that sells candles. We’ll spend a half hour twisting off tops and inhaling the manufactured bouquets.
“Can I help you with anything?” a sales person will ask.
“No, thanks. We’re just here to smell things,” one of us responds.
“Ooh, try this one!” we’ll then say to each other over and over before offering a ranking.
Candles are nice, but they’re not the same as the specific scents that bring to mind special people, places and things.
I’ve always hoped to find a candle called Wet Autumn Leaves. I’ll catch that smell sometimes through the car vents as I traverse backroads on my way to work, and thoughts fill my mind of childhood afternoons spent running around the woods.
Other times in my car, a fellow motorist’s maided muffler might clog the air with fumes that remind me of being at dirt-track races, watching my big brother speed and slide around the oval as a cloud of dust and exhaust hangs overhead.
It could be dangerous, but why can’t Yankee Candle produce a gasoline-themed line? Rednecks would line up for it.
Or, in tune with that, how about one called Pop’s Shed? That’s a place where I still make sure to take a whiff — but not too big — whenever I have the chance.
The essence is quite pleasing.
As is my wife’s favorite perfume, though perhaps not so oddly. It’s made by Clinique, not Castrol. She’s worn Happy for so long that when she runs out of it and applies a stopgap alternative, I’m Unhappy with how it throws me off .
“You smell like someone else,” I tell her.
Her favorite perfume is comforting to me. In a way, strangely, so is newspaper ink.
Sometimes at work, I’ll venture back to the press room for a few breaths — and, congruently, I’ll also go back to the breakfast table, circa 1991, where I’d pour milk over my Cheerios and then pore over the morning box scores in the sports section of the morning paper. I’ve worked at the News-Post for more than 20 years and met a lot of people here, but the smell of the press still really only reminds me of being a kid and hoping to find out if Ken Griffey Jr. hit another home run the night before.
Baseball box scores and baseball card boxes — those are two smells that permeated my life as a kid. Sometimes, I’ll randomly go through the boxes of my old sports cards not so much for the memories evoked by the players on them but for the slight fragrance of the dated cardboard.
It’s 2022. I’m sure I could Google “Baseball Card Candle” and something would pop up on Etsy.
Turns out, no. Today’s candle makers are missing another sure seller. But I did spot one called Ball Glove that I might order as soon as I’m done writing this. After all, since no one is interested in playing catch with me anymore , I’ll occasionally put on my ball glove and pat it hard a few times. Then, I’ll avoid washing my hands for awhile so as to preserve the leather smell left on my skin by the Rawlings.
You can’t put a price on the flashbacks stirred by that scent. But I’d fork over $13.50 plus tax and shipping to briefly fill my dirty-dog smelling house with it by burning a candle.
I do sorta worry that these fabricated scents are taking over. Like, one day, I want the smell center in my son’s brain to take him back to memorable settings in his life and not just remind him of the jar of wax he bought with Dad at Home Goods that time in the 2020s.
I wonder what smells will one day spark a return to an enjoyable part of his upbringing. I wonder what will fill his nostrils now that will remain with him much later.
