I think our sense of smell is one of the most beautiful things about our bodies. You can find me standing in a pine forest, huffing cardamom, taking pics of soaps in restaurant WCs, getting a headache in the fragrance section of the bespoke homegoods store. Some art incorporates smell, such as paint that effuses the scent of shoveled soil or an orchestra accompanied by scent cannons firing plumes across the audience, but I cherish this intangible gift of ours because it’s one that mass media can’t reach. It’s amazing that it’s connected so closely to our memory -- that you can smell a cologne or the inside of a tent and instantly hallucinate a school dance or a family camping trip you forgot about or, at the very least, didn’t mean to think about so vividly today. I know this will sound privileged and silly, but as a relatively young person my biggest fear from the pandemic wasn’t death — it was losing my sense of smell. I just know that it’s something I would miss so much. It enhances taste and experience and I would go crazy without it.
here is a very incomplete list of things I think smell good:
-tomato vines
-Shoyeido friend of pine incense
-garlic, raw and cooked
-anise
-palo santo
-coffee, raw and cooked
-armpits (lemme get in there)
-briney ocean
-tennis balls
-old lifejackets
-bergamot / patchouli stuff from L:A Bruket
