A Scentsational Journey

 

They say we each have our own scent...

Our unique scent is as distinctive as our DNA, a deeply personal bouquet of diet, hormones, hygiene, and health.

Did you know? Napoleon once wrote his wife, Josephine, and told her “not to bathe” because he was coming home in three days and adored her natural aroma.

After my father passed away eight years ago, my Mom kept one his handkerchiefs. She keeps it at her bedside table drawer and when she presses it up to her nose she is comforted once again by his immediate presence as scent memories convey his love across time, space, and eternity.

Our homes have their own particular scents too. The aroma of lemon-scented furniture polish, cat dander, damp dogs, laundry in the hamper. The scent of coffee, bacon, and ripening fruit in the kitchen; rumpled sheets in the bedrooms; fresh flowers, candles in the living room.

Diane Ackerman reminds us that “smells spur memories, but they also rouse our dozy senses, pamper and indulge us, help define our self-image, stir the cauldron of our seductiveness, warn us of danger, lead us into temptation, fan our religious fervor, accompany us to heaven, wed us to fashion, steep us in luxury”.

Today, essential oils are used in aromatherapy to positively affect the mind and body. Inhaling the aroma can stimulate the limbic system, involving our emotions, behavior, smell, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and triggers long-term memory. They are considered ideal for physical and emotional wellness.

What if we lost our sense of smell? If we suddenly suffered from anosmia, as do two million Americans? We would find ourselves cast adrift without the internal compass of scent.

I invite you to take a scentsational journey and delight in the simple pleasure of your sense of smell. Indulge yourself with comfort aromas. Take a creative excursion to an Italian market; browse through a used bookstore; stop by the perfume counter of a large department store near you and inhale delight. Lie on the grass in a nearby park or your backyard and smell the sweetness of spring. Take a walk in the woods, a garden, or your neighborhood after it rains.

Cook plum tomatoes, garlic, onions, sausage, and peppers in olive oil to go on fresh pasta for dinner tonight; enjoy a scented bath and then a dusting of our earliest scent memory, Johnson’s Baby Powder.

The world around us possesses exquisite smells that can stir our memories, change our emotions, and transform our feelings and moods.

Today, when you smell something wonderful, be grateful for this remarkable gift.