This morning I went to the Unitarian church to hear my friend, Tony George, play drums. He did an outstanding job. Our friend Paul Klein led the pact and a handful of musical masters shared soul and rhythm with the congregation.
I returned and found my tail-wagging wildly enthusiastic dog, Lucy, waiting. As I often do, I went for the floor and we rolled around together. We had a grand time and in between our antics she managed a sniff or two. I watched her smelling me. It was so intimate. She’s sniffs me all the time, but until today, I really didn’t take part. Today, I offered no resistance and became a co-conspirator in this animal act of recognition. “Oh I know you, this is your smell.” In the past, I’ve smelled her too, but not to recognize her, just to manage her health. Does she smell, does she need a bath, do the inside of her ears smell funny? She’s the only living animal I smell.
With a few exceptions – I smell people’s breath, their B.O. and their gas, and that’s not pleasant. I don’t intentionally smell others, no sniffing and drinking it in. No smell and tell. Their odors just happen to be in line with my olfactory receptors. These human odors don’t have much character. I can’t ever remember thinking, “You have such lovely breath.”These are not terms of endearment. I can’t imagine living 300 years ago. Smelling was not an elective. Every day was a smellathon. If you were near anyone, you knew it. Now we’re sanitized, scrubbed clean and antibacterialized.
I read somewhere that if you lick your arm, and wait 3 seconds and then smell it; you can smell your breath. It does work. I think that’s why I brush my teeth three times a day. And in full disclosure, I admit I do smell under my arms frequently because I don’t use deodorant. This is my maintenance smelling.
This reminds me of a smell joke. Can you believe I actually know a smell joke? Actually I know two. A janitor is in the elevator. He is alone and lets out a big one. It was one of those stinky ones so he sprays some Pine-sol. When the next person get in the elevator he exclaims, “What the heck? It smells like someone shit a Christmas tree.”
I can’t resist. My mom told me this next smell joke. It was so uncharacteristic of her; she was a little on the prim and proper side until she got Alzheimer’s. Then all that propriety sort of leaked out. “The blind man passed a fish market. ‘Good evening ladies.’” I think that was the family dirty joke.
Now, back on track. I wish people were not so standoffish – you know that 18 inch rule - too close and we’re in someone’s space. I wish people could get close enough to recognize each other’s fragrance, that one identifying odor unique to him or her. I remember that deep time of intimacy with a new lover when I wanted to drink him in. I would smell his clothes – his chest - I just wanted to be closer. I wanted my breath to bring him into me.
I wonder if we knew each other intimately - I knew your smell and you knew mine, could we call ourselves enemies? Could we forget that primal musky call to life? Could we go to war and kill each other? If I was intoxicated by your essence, what would I do? What would you do? What would we do? If were that close, would we go to war?
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