Just now I walked by a bowl full of ripe peaches and their subtle peachy waft followed me for a few feet into the kitchen. On the window sill sit two ripening pineapples that exude that characteristic and densely sweet pineappley aroma as I stand at the kitchen sink. Walking by the roses that are just beginning to flower in the garden is intoxicating, yet so fleeting. The scent is there one second and gone the next, so subtle, so elusive, so elegant, so delicate. You can’t catch it, and you can’t make it last forever. I can only tell you that my pineapple smells sooooooo pineappley, but I can’t share the aroma with you, and I can’t give you a descriptive since we have no words for scents, only comparatives. Only if you stand right next to me can we both smell the pineapple. Yet, even then I can’t be sure you smell the same thing I smell. A perfume smells different on each person and to each person, and you will smell it differently on your own skin than someone standing next to you will smell it on you.
We take them so much for granted, our senses. The 6th sense, that of intuition and knowing, may be different, because not everyone believes in it, and it needs to be cultivated to be recognized. But the other five, those of taste, smell, touch, sound and sight are evident to all of us. Other than the sense of vision – we can stare at something for hours – the other four senses are so elusive that they force us to be in the present. One second a scent, or sound, or sensation, or taste, is there, and then it’s already gone. If we don’t pay attention, we might not even experience it at all. Some people lost their sense of smell and taste after a bout with Covid, sometimes temporarily, sometimes or a longer period, and it seems to be a very disorienting experience. It’s as if the universe offered an opportunity to ask ourselves “What do I like better, experiencing tasting and smelling, or not?”
Our five senses enrich our existence in such manifold ways, they make our life so tremendously more wonderous and pleasurable. But it takes awareness and “smelling the roses” lest we become so jaded and cynical that we simply brush by an encounter with the delicate scent of lilies of the valley or a gorgeous perfume. True or not, real estate agents say that the scent of freshly baked apple pie wafting through a house might accelerate the sale. Our sense of smell alters our perception, making the bearer of the perfume more beautiful or handsome, the apple pie scented home more desirable, or the freshly powdered baby more adorable. Scents awaken our imagination and our memory in magical ways. Take your ability to smell with a sense of gratitude and awe, stand still for that fleeting second when a scent stirs something in you. Enjoy it as a gift that enhances and beautifies your day.