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The Smell of Time
Can you tell the seasons by their scents?
Perhaps this is because I live in a rural part of Massachusetts. Or perhaps because I have a pretty big nose. I’m not sure. All I know is that every month of the year seems to have a different smell.
I first noticed this phenomenon some years ago. I don’t always sleep deeply, so I wake up very groggy most days. As I slowly come awake, with absolutely no sense of what day, week, month, or season it is, I am able to snap back into place by smelling the fresh air.
Have you noticed this, too?
I have the odd feeling that if I were to fall into a coma for a very long time, I would be able to pinpoint the date pretty accurately with just my nose.
For example, the smell of March where I live is a smell of earth. Mud, and slowly thawing sod, and the smell of tree bark. It is a deep smell, like the sound of a cello. Throaty. It can almost taste March.
May is easy, of course. May smells like flowers and grass and baby leaves. It’s a bright smell. It’s a hopeful smell.
December smells like ice, whether or not there is snow on the ground. It smells sharp, like the blue of a very cold winter sky or the scent of fresh cut pine.
