Darby Strong

Playing point. Delivering the rock.

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The Senses: Smell – First In A Series

January 30, 2005 by darby

I am baking an apple-pie and the smell wafts through the house. I love this smell. Although it doesn’t trigger any specific memories for me, it is a pleasant and warming smell. It reminds me to revisit Diane Ackerman’s book, A Natural History of the Senses. She tells a story describing how Helen Keller ascertained the path that each visitor took throughout her house SOLELY BY THE ODORS they carried with them as they moved through various hallways and rooms.

I ADORE the sense of smell, and am extremely attuned to it. Unlike many, I find pungent smells (body odor, skunks, intense cheeses) rather appealing, mainly because they are incredibly distinct. This brings me to my fascination with nostalgia, as a topic and how it relates to smells (physiologically) and actual longing or grieving, of sorts. Grieving for familiarity, perhaps. Or longing for food, even. Perhaps the smell association is linked to memory (nostalgia) so that we could survive when we were hunters and gatherers. By smells triggering memory, we were perhaps more capable of anticipating weather, tracking prey, and choosing suitable mates through the phermones they released.

Filed Under: Docu Potent

Comments

  1. Gwen says

    February 2, 2005 at 8:55 am

    I can attest to the fantastic smell of that pie!!! It was awesome. We will miss you lady….

  2. Mag says

    February 26, 2008 at 8:05 am

    http://www.amazon.com/Perfume-Story-Murderer-Ben-Whishaw/dp/B000QUCNOK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1204031089&sr=8-1
    I enjoyed this book a lot. Dark but really makes you delve into the smell sense.

  3. Mag says

    February 26, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Perfume by Patrick Suskind
    I enjoyed this book a lot. Dark but really makes you delve into the smell sense.

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