My sense of the world

    I am totally lacking a sense of smell. I can’t smell a dead skunk in the road. I usually see this as more of a blessing than a detriment. I know that there are some things that I miss out on, but there are far more that I happily avoid.  Apparently smell triggers memory even more than most of the senses. Maybe that could be a better excuse for my “memory moments” than “senior moments.”

As much as you can’t explain a color to someone who has never seen it, you can’t explain a smell to someone who has no reference. What difference has a lack of smell made in my world? I would say that it has made very little. There a very few times that you have to compensate for a lack of smell. Once I woke up a neighbor in the middle of the night to smell my house. It may sound funny, but when your gas heater doesn’t seem to work and the pet is sick and you begin to get a headache, well “gas leak” does slip through your mind. I should add that neighbor and good friend was still drunk from her evening and she couldn’t get past the idea that I wanted her to smell my house because I thought that someone had been there, and when I called the gas guy, he tried to assure me that “anyone can smell a gas leak, they add stuff so it smells really bad.” Duh dude!

Everyone asks me how food tastes when you can’t smell. My answer is tat I don’t know how things taste to you, but I certainly have my food preferences. They used to say that you  couldn’t  tell if you were eating an orange or a lemon if they couldn’t smell or see it. They never picked me, because I assure you that I can tell the difference between the two.

There are things that I’ve always wished I could smell. I would like to smell the forest on an early morning.  I know the air feels different on my skin and I think the smell must be amazing. I want to smell what the air is like after the rain. I want to smell fresh cut grass. These are things that I have heard talked about growing up. They have made a mental imprint and as odd as my choices may seem can you imagine not smelling them? I know roses and chocolate smell great, but I have no idea why grass smells good.

I have been skeptical of others when they told me that it smelled like rain. I have wondered why beautiful flowers were quickly thrown out. I learned that when going by a dead skunk all conversation in the car will abruptly cease. These are things that I figured out by guessing. Rain may not smell but lightening burning the air does. Beautiful flowers can smell too sweet, and people hold their breath when faced with really bad smells. I can taste fumes in the air and allergies and asthma don’t seem to miss the sense of smell.

I am never sure if my clothes smell okay. I am perhaps overly concerned about keeping the cat’s litter box clean. I have stopped wearing perfume and have thrown out all I’ve purchased. I had two siblings that are legally blind. Having no sense of smell does not make me handicapped, I know the difference! It is just one of many, many things that makes me unique. Besides, it may make it easier for me to work in a prison.