A friend’s mentioning of “air-dried sheets” recently evoked an immediate and emotional response—and it set me to thinking about other smells I prize. These include the smell of the earth—and the air—after rain, pine (as in freshly cut Christmas tree), freshly-mown hay, lilacs, a yellow rose, bread just out of the oven, sun-ripened fruit, fresh herbs—and many, many more.
My friend’s list included burning leaves, roasting chestnuts, new leather shoes for school in the fall, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, her grandmother’s hybrid tea roses, incense and candle wax at church, lilies at Easter and home.
On investigation, I discovered the Sense of Smell Institute claims the average person can identify approximately 10,000 different odors—and they can recall the smells with 65% accuracy after a year. This is amazing.
Our olfactory system is first and foremost a warning system for things we should avoid. That aside, if we think about those smells that delight us, where we were born and raised affects our choices of favorite smells. So, too, does gender.
My list of favorite smells is greatly influenced by my growing up on a farm in Iowa. When I began making my list, I did a visual inventory of the farm and its surrounding, going from general to specific. From the smell of the earth and the air after rain, I went to smells of yard and garden flowers and to smells of my mother’s extraordinary cooking.
There were plenty of farm smells that weren’t all that pleasant, for sure. Finding one of them near the Plaza in New York City, where the horse-drawn carriages wait, always makes me smile.
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