Friday Pragmatism | Aromas

Aromas, smells and scents have been in my thoughts this week.

I think of a few of my favourite smells;
Freshly baked bread which I associate with my father.
Freshly ground and also drawn coffee which I guess I also associate primarily with my father, and then of cafes in Melbourne.
The scent of chill air heavy with impending rain.
The ground-heat in summer.
Wine and various spirits.
My shampoo that smells of apples.

I reflect on a memory I’ve touched on briefly before here in my diary.
In year 10 of high-school I would have been 16-17 years of age. It was a time in our lives where we were all more-or-less friends with everyone and each-other. The vibrance of youth, enthusiasm and cool coursed through our veins and we were all so desperate to be treated like adults. I remember in one class approaching one of the girls to talk about work or life or whatever it was and inhaling her perfume; it was without a doubt the very first day of my on-going love-affair with vanilla-bean.
I wish I’d recorded that day, because while fresh coffee had been a constant most of my life having grown up with Italians, this was the first scent that combined with my raging hormones and instantly triggered over-sexed emotions, hardly even thoughts. She was a quirky girl and I’d always liked her for it, but that scent just hit me at the right time and I was overcome with a feeling of euphoria. She instantly became angelic and I wanted to embrace her and explore her body with my mouth. You have to understand that being around 17, while I was probably decently imaginative, the thoughts probably didn’t go very far after that – certainly not as far as I take them now. I celebrate that time though, that wild, juvenile almost cute passion; I was amazed that so simple a thing could trigger such a powerful experience. I would forever (or at-least for the remainder of my time in high-school) be drawn to her, even when we naturally gravitated away from one-another. I think of her in fondness now and I imagine that were she ever to discover my thoughts, she’d laugh heartily at them. Irrationally, because I associate her with such a positive memory, I genuinely wish her well wherever she is now.

The other fragrance I’ve fallen in-love with a little more recently is that of coconut. Years ago with my last partner, we bought some sun-screen oil that was heavily scented with coconut, and while I didn’t immediately fall into the headiness often triggered by these smells now, it was probably the first time I took note of it, particularly on my skin. I’m not entirely sure where the thought came from, what triggered it exactly, but two weeks ago I became inspired to head out to a store and pick up some hand-wash, shower-gel/body-wash and a soap-bar all made from coconut oil. It speaks of many things to me, and while the shop-attendant mentioned her own association with summer, it’s not so restricted in me. Coconut and vanilla-bean are at once sensuous and seductive, but then also bright and warm, almost homely in some ways. There are differences in vanilla smells that can change how aggressively sexual it is, but even in that it can still be so subtle and mellow. I love the power of it, the breadth of thoughts that the smells can inspire and facilitate in my imagination. Coconut particularly I associate with feelings of joy and freedom, sometimes laziness, certainly peace and serenity and yet still vibrance.

Coffee will always be a precious scent to me. It is at once something shared, and something singular. Coffee has been a constant in my life from the earliest of childhood, through friendships, relationships long-term and short, family and of-course isolation. It is perhaps one of the most powerful of the food-scents along with that of red wine. The smell is so full of character, both upfront and immediately evident, and also subtle, hidden, and developing over time. Coffee, like wine, is like people as so many have romanticised. It is complex, powerful, full-bodied, as settled as it is aggressive. Even when time is shared with others, there is an element to coffee that will always be isolating for me; an individual moment that I keep just for myself, a private moment. It’s a moment of reflection and introspection which I also associate with tea, although in a slightly different way.

These three scents would have to be my most supremely favoured at present. There are other wonderful smells in life; citrus, rainforest, timber, certain wood-smokes and many, many foods, but coffee, coconut and vanilla-bean will forever be among the most powerful. There are times in my life where they can almost render me completely disarmed and vulnerable, something that wine also has the ability to do in the aroma, tasting and consumption of it. Sometimes I have to be careful when I catch the scent of vanilla; it makes me instinctively internally swoon and I feel like immediately embracing the person from which it has come and kissing them deeply, and in the strangeness of my imagination, this certainly does happen.

It is said that the sense of smell is the most powerful conjurer of memory, and this most certainly seems true for me. Not only does it trigger memories though, it’s much more powerful than that; it sets my emotions and hormones racing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.