Word of the Year: Joy 11: Scentsuality

 

Wild honey nectar candle. Source: DW Home

Mmmmmm, the sensual joy of fragrance.

To borrow from a past post, there are so many aromatic characters:

• Spicy
• Floral
• Citrusy
• Tangy
• Sweet
• Sour
• Musky
• Crisp
• Clean
• Pungent
• Light
• Sharp
• Fishy
• Metallic
• Herbal
• Earthy
• Moldy
• Musty
• Buttery
• Nutty
• Rotting
• Barnyard 
• Minty

Below are scents that have delighted me in this time of COVID, inviting me to 

breathe deeply, 

to dwell in the moment I'm in.

• Wild honey nectar candle
• Rosemary needles captured in the wilds of residential Birmingham and Las Cruces, which I plucked, inhaled deeply of, and bit into.

 

Rosemary collected from across the street. Birmingham, Alabama. November 2020.

• Fresh basil growing on my windowsill

 

Basil growing in my kitchen. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

• Sentimental, vintage scent of White Shoulders, an enormous bottle of which I stumbled upon in a friend's closet, who had received it as a gift, and which she re-gifted to me. The fragrance is light and pretty. In a pandemic, anointing oneself with a spray of pretty is a sweet joy.
• Community Coffee's Pecan Praline flavored coffee, mmm, delicious smell. It also reminds me of a time I shared with my mother, when I took her for a pre- or post-op check with an opthmalogist. We had a coffee together in the medical building's little breakfast bar, chatting about nothing in particular, but enjoying the time together. Pecan praline-flavored coffee was on tap that morning.
• Super-fishy essence of fish sauce, anchovies, sardines. Their aggressive umaminess brings forth a perverse pleasure in the coupling of revulsion and attraction. Somehow, their aroma smacks my senses in a way that reminds me: I am alive. As they were, once, and it is as if I smell their essence of both death and life. The joy does not come from any pleasure in their demise. It comes from a reminder to me that I am alive in this moment. And that I'd better goshdarn notice that, appreciate it, and be in it. 
  

 

Small fish at market. Batumi, Caucasus Georgia. April 2012.

 

Related posts

2020: Tucson, AZ: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 10: Creature Comforts: Smells

2018: St. Louis: For the Senses: Seafood City

2016: Colorado: Boulder: The Scentsual

2013: On Mangoes

 

Joys so far this year

Joy 1: Word of the Year: Joy

Joy 2: Music

Joy 3: Surprise Vista

Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free

Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted

Joy 6: Color

Joy 7: Birdsong

Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich

Joy 10: Let in Light

 

 

Tucson, AZ: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 10: Creature Comforts: Smells

Cinnamon, spice souk, Dubai, UAE. January 2012.

Smells.

Each time I venture out into the COVID wildlands, I bring back with me some creature comfort. A Survivor Island comfort item. A treat.

In my most recent expedition, I picked up two slender, plastic cylinders of herbs: dried rosemary and dried oregano. At home in my cave, each time I pop or twist a lid, I draw in their aromas. A slight eucalyptic vapor of the rosemary, and a nostalgia for my childhood's Saturday-night-homemade-pizza dinners that the oregano summons.

These herby perfumes give me so much pleasure for so little cost.

A twist of herb, Yerevan, Armenia. March 2012.

I remember my visit to the Celestial Seasonings tea plant near Boulder, Colorado, a few years back:

Walking through waves of scent. An aroma bath. Breathing deeply to pull in those biological perfumes. Sheer sensual pleasure.

The mint room. It's in its own room because mint's perfume is so sharp, so pungent, that it invades all other fragrances in its wave. Some visitors cannot even stay in this room for longer than a few seconds because they are overcome by its power.

My humble herb garden, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

I remember an ode to the intoxicating fragrance of ripe mangoes, written by Ngishili:

And I am just here breathing the sweet air. If this day’s oxygen were a drink, it would be served as a brightly colored tropical cocktail with two olives, a tiny umbrella and a fancy pair of drinking straws. It might as well be, considering that taking a deep breathe leaves one heady; at the brink of being intoxicated. But all I can think about is mangoes. I know that the mango trees are laden with fruit at this time of year. The mangoes are still green and will be ripening en mass in a few short weeks. At that time, every mango tree will litter the ground with yellow ready fruit, with such mischief that it would be impossible to walk past the tree without being dunked on the top of your head.

I remember how swoony the scent of guavas made me in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico:

The guavas' fragrance wafts over me as I work at my laptop. It is the stuff of cliches - "heady" and "intoxicating." I don't know of any other fruit that has the same effect. Maybe a freshly-cut lime. But where a lime's scent is sharp and energizing, the guava's is a silky perfume that makes you inhale slowly and deeply. Why don't we have guava-based perfume?

Guavas and lime, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico. November 2010.

Excuse me while I go to my cabinet for an olfactory hit of oregano and rosemary.

St. Louis: For the Senses: Seafood City

Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

Am I so far off from a dog? I'm beginning to think not.

Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

A dog of my childhood joyfully rolled in putrefying fish on a stony beach, the rot taking color in yellow and orange, to sing with the squishy stench.

Crawfish, Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

One of the joys of entering Rouse's Market in Lafayette was the smell of fish, both raw and cooked.

There was that not-quite-right blend of boiled, spiced crawfish with sticky sweet buns and a bottom note of crawfish etoufee at the Crawfish Etoufee Cookoff in Eunice. Here's what I wrote about that then:

It's extraordinary to smell the fragrances of  muddy bayou, spicy crawfish boil, and cinnamon buns all at once. I couldn't decide if I loved it or felt repelled by it. Attempts to come to a conclusion required many careful inhalations, to no avail.

So when I entered Seafood City on Olive Street in University City this summer, the intake of breath brought a sensory rush from the mixture of fresh and fishy, raw and cooked, the living and the dead, beauty and gore.

Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

There is pleasure in this as there is in approaching a terrifically pungent, soft cheese. The aroma is preposterous, but the flavor and texture are so fully sensual, and the combination of all is splendid. Which reminds me of this one anchovy I consumed recently. This small, floppy grayish-silvery thing, homely; but its oily, fishy, salty dimensions of flavor required deliberation of thought and closed eyes to extend the life of their chorus.

On my first visit to Seafood City, I saw my very first jackfruit. Until then, I'd only read about them. They are huge!

Jackfruit, Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

The idea of a Buddhist style chicken puzzled me as I guess I thought Buddhists were vegetarian.

Buddhist chicken, Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

I wonder how "fresh" is defined. Minutes? Hours? Days?

Fresh pork blood, Seafood City, University City, Missouri. 2018.

A slide show of my visits to Seafood City below:






This isn't the first time I've been a "scentsual" tourist. There was a satisfying trip through the Celestial Seasonings plant outside Boulder, Colorado in 2016.

I will likely need another hit of Seafood City before I leave Missouri this year.

Colorado: Boulder: The Scentsual

Mmmmm. Peanut tea. Credit: Eric Christopher Perry

I am a sensualist, there is no doubt. The luxuries of sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell are wondrous avenues to living a rich life, independent of one's material wealth.


Consider the sense of smell. So many nouns to describe the nuances of this gift. 

• Smell
• Fragrance
• Aroma
• Odor
• Stench
• Scent
• Stink
• Perfume
• Bouquet
• Musk

A twist of herb. Yerevan, Armenia. March 2012.

So many ways to describe the character of a smell: 

• Spicy
• Floral
• Citrusy
• Tangy
• Sweet
• Sour
• Musky
• Crisp
• Clean
• Pungent
• Light
• Sharp
• Fishy
• Metallic
• Herbal
• Earthy
• Moldy
• Musty
• Buttery
• Nutty
• Rotting
• Barnyard 
• Minty

Spice Market, Istanbul. June 2012.

A couple of years ago, when I attended the Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off in Eunice, I experienced the discordant but compelling aromas of sweet cinnamon rolls competing for air with spicy crawfish boils.

Spicy crawfish. Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off. Eunice, Louisiana. March 2014.

In 2012, a drive through Derry, New Mexico, introduced me to the heady scent of roasting peppers in October.


In 2011, in Awassa, Ethiopia, the odor of giant storks nesting in the branches above me was so outrageously pungent as to make me laugh in appalled admiration.

But getting back to Colorado. One day, I visited the Celestial Seasonings plant outside of Boulder.

A good tour, and I recommend it. No pics allowed in the plant, therefore I have none to show.

The most memorable take-aways for me: 

Walking through waves of scent. An aroma bath. Breathing deeply to pull in those biological perfumes. Sheer sensual pleasure.

The mint room. It's in its own room because mint's perfume is so sharp, so pungent, that it invades all other fragrances in its wave. Some visitors cannot even stay in this room for longer than a few seconds because they are overcome by its power.

Spice Market, Istanbul. June 2012.

Breathe in. Mmmmm.