Only Once. Never Again.

The preciousness of the moment.

My husband and I walk the same 4 mile route in our neighborhood every afternoon, passing the same houses, trees, and vistas each time. It’s a standing appointment that started during COVID and has become a consistent, familiar rhythm in our life.

But it was Monday’s walk that made me realize something that’s never really talked about: that smell never gives you the luxury of later.

We were walking along, the familiar warm, refreshing, slightly sweet scent from rows of eucalyptus trees permeating the air. Then in the distance the aroma of what I can only describe as “noodle soup” quietly, yet increasingly took over the smellscape. Since it was early evening, I imagine someone inside one of the homes was preparing dinner. It was delightful and made me crave something similar that night. No sooner did I conjure images of a bowl of rich udon noodles in vegetable-laden miso broth in my head, when a strong, sharp, crisp, aldehydic odor interrupted mid thought. Someone was running their washing machine and that distinctive “laundry smell” cut through like a knife.

It’s jarring when the smellscape shifts so suddenly; when you don’t get to decide when the soup aroma is finished. Smells come in and out unannounced, showing up as they please.

In Japanese there’s an expression ichi-go ichi-e which is the art of holding every meeting as if it couldn’t happen twice. The phrase is said to come from the Japanese tea ceremony, where every ceremony must be treated as if it’ll never come again. The host prepares with total care, the guest arrives with total attention, the tea is made, shared, received, and then it’s over. Even if the same people gather in the same room the following week, that gathering will be something entirely different: the light will have shifted, the season will have moved, everyone present will be older. Each encounter happens once, never to be repeated.

It occurred to me that this concept can be applied to smell.

A row of eucalyptus trees along our walk.

I can show you pictures of our walk: the views of the airport in the distance, the rows of eucalyptus trees that line a particular street, the bend in the road that leads to a steep climb. I can also record the familiar sound of crows cawing, woodpeckers pecking, and birds chirping. You can look at the pictures again and again, listen to the sounds again and again. But I can’t replay the “noodle soup meets laundry” smell ever again. It was a one-time experience, never to be repeated. There’s no re-smell button.

This is the ichi-go ichi-e for smell.

We so often believe that unique smell experiences happen only on vacation, at an event, somewhere far from home. In fact, they happen in the most repeated, most mundane moments we have: cooking, laundry, the ordinary domestic smells of neighbors while on a walk.

On our Tuesday walk we followed the same path, passed the same houses, yet the smells were different. This time the floral scent of jasmine greeted us along one street, only to be followed by the pungent odor from a still-to-be-collected garbage bin as we turned down another street. I took it all in knowing I would never smell the route the exact same way again.

I’m curious, when did you last notice an everyday smell that you knew would never come back the same way again?