Smelling Another Year

A perspective of time through the nose.

Happy birthday to me!

Hello Friend, 

Tomorrow I will have made another trip around the sun. Yippee! Yes, I’m actually one of those people that likes birthdays; not to have others celebrate me, but for me to celebrate myself. How grateful I am to still be moving forward, and able to experience this crazy thing we call life. 

It always amazes me how quickly time flies, seemingly faster year after year. Which got me thinking about the role our sense of smell plays in our perception of time. Because smell has the power to play with the temporal horizon of the present and the future. Let’s take a look.

FAST

Smelling allows us to go back in time.  In an instant, through a single whiff, we can be transported back to our grandmother’s kitchen as a 5 year old child. We rewind our memories as fast as we can smell. Twenty-five, thirty, even forty years before today, in a snap we experience a different moment in our life. It’s the unexpected whiff of a familiar smell that can be most jolting, running through your body like a lightning strike.  

But, perhaps what I find most fascinating about smelling is that you can instantly be connected to the past simply by smelling the here and now. We are surrounded by everyday odors that people experienced long ago. Think of majestic trees outside your home that have emitted their scent to the neighborhood long before you moved in. What you smell today is arguably, more or less, the same smell that the previous tenant enjoyed. The experience of the past and present joined in an instant through one sniff.  

SUSPENDED

Smelling allows us to suspend time. When we actively, purposefully smell something we are fully present. We pay attention. We let the odor molecules of the other into ourselves, and we connect and communicate in the here and now. 

If you’ve ever lit incense, and sat quietly, eyes closed, taking in the smell, you’ve experienced the feeling of being. Just being. Not engaging in the past, or dwelling on the future, but rather simply immersed in the moment. It’s a feeling of being fully embodied, out of your head, as if suspended in time. 

SLOW

Smelling allows us to slow down time. It can tell us something is going to happen, by announcing things before they arrive. This anticipation makes time slow down (think of when you travel to a new place and how it always feels longer than the return journey home). 

Most often the smell is predictable and brings us comfort, so we relish being in this seemingly stretched moment. Think of the smell of the lingering air right before it rains, or the smell of detergent wafting out of the washer, signaling a satisfaction in knowing you’ll soon have clean clothes.

Smell is particularly adept at letting our enjoyment of eating last longer. The experience begins long before we take our first sip or bite. The smell of coffee brewing, a stew cooking on the stove, or bread baking in the oven; all awaken the pleasure of eating (notice the saliva building in your mouth) well before the meal begins.

I like the idea that we can play with time through our nose; experience different tempos in space simply by how we smell. As you go about your day today, think about how smells are affecting you in different ways. What smells are fast, make you feel suspended in the moment, or seem to slow things down. It’s a beautiful observation that I hope you’ll make. 

Happy smelling!