Odors, Experiences, and a Life Without Scent
"...What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;..."
(Juliet, "Romeo and Juliet" , Shakespeare (ca. 1597))"...Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!..."
(Lady Macbeth, "Macbeth" , Shakespeare (ca. 1606))"...Great masses of pale white clematis hang in sheets from the trees, cactus and aloe run riot among the glens, sweet scents of oleander float around the deep ravines, delicious perfumes of violets are wafted on every breeze from unseen and unsuspected gardens...."
("The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins" , T. G. Bonney, E. A. R. Ball, H. D. Traill, Grant Allen, Arthur Griffiths, Robert Brown (1862))
I know that. I've done a fair amount of reading in my day, so I know quite a bit about odor. I gather that roses and other flowers smell sweet, and that blood has a distinctive odor.
But I don't know that the way I know that a cloudless sky is blue. If my sight was as good as my sense of smell, I'd be legally blind.
There wasn't one dramatic 'aha' moment when I realized that most folks have a whole world of perceptions that I don't.
But a couple experiences do stand out....
More at A Catholic Citizen in America.
(Smell blindness, anosmia, has downsides; but, for me, not many: sharing memories which include a lake where every prospect pleases and only fish are stinky.)
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