I was completely obsessed for almost two full blocks of my morning walk with the scent of some kind of tree, intensely expressing its anticipation of spring. The smell was sweet and fresh. Not quite grassy, not quite piney.
It smelled good. And it made me happy. And it made me wish I had a name for it. A better vocabulary for smells.
I wish I could offer smelling notes the way they offer tasting notes at wineries. I prefer these these notes to be provided in writing. Printed on a menu, not on the bottle's label — that would be misleading; the notes shouldn't be thought of as referring to a substance in the bottle when in fact they describe a human experience of something that has come out of it. Tasting notes. I mean, yes, the best medium for tasting notes really would be spoken language, not writing — something real-time, ephemeral — but it's just, you know, overwhelming, when someone comes up to the table and introduces themselves as the sommelier and starts showing off. Giving this performance, basically speaking in tongues right in front of you while all you can think about is the price. Clearly I'm not fancy enough to encounter all that many table-side sommeliers. But I do live in Northern California and so sometimes people want to go to wineries. And there, a person whose job it is to sell crates of wine and memberships in the winery will dazzle everyone with a magnificent stream of language while pouring out a small glass of wine. And maybe a tasting is also a naming, or even a transubstantiation — the wine turning to words in the mouth. Or synesthesia? Experiencing flavor as language.
If you lose the ability to speak, it's called aphasia. If you start speaking in tongues, it's called glossolalia. If you lose the ability to smell, it's called anosmia. This word sounds almost comical, the word nose stuck in there like someone just made it up. But it's quite serious — losing the ability to smell can bring a sense of alienation and depression. People lose their appetite. Socializing becomes different. Home becomes different. Memory is different. Some are haunted by phantom smells.
In college I had the same instructor for both Intro to Biology and Intro to Photography, an artist who had studied botany because he liked learning the names of the parts of plants. It's been 20 years but I remember him explaining this on the first day of lab. And I remember his photos — black and white images of partially erased chalkboards. Handwritten words in the process of becoming dusty ghosts.
I don't know if the bio/photo teacher knew the names of plant smells or just the names of plant parts. Maybe the smell is one of the parts? Maybe the name is part of the smell? He gave the assignment to go birdwatching on campus; we were loaned (lent?) nice binoculars from a locked cabinet. Someone told me birdwatching isn't the right word, because it's really more about bird listening. And I just saw an episode of Queer Eye where they take the guy fishing and they're not having any luck and so the guy's friend jokes: 'Well there's a reason they call it going fishing and not going catching.'
And then there was the figure drawing teacher who had learned all the names of all the bones in the body from an anatomy textbook. And would rattle them off in class while all anyone else could think about was the naked person standing in the middle of the room. And their parts.
If we're being honest: I wanted a name for the smell of the tree on my morning walk because I wanted to Google it. So I could find out... what, exactly? That there is indeed a tree that smells a certain way in the earliest moments of spring in Northern California? That what I'm smelling is known and named? That something of this lonely experience of tasting and smelling and occupying a body is shared and can be spoken of?
—ML
