Odours for Life

I’ve never had the nose to pick 
the separate aromas in a bouquet of wine

it is a talent few possess

rarely have I been able to sniff cologne 
which doesn’t then make me break out
with sneezing and runny eyes

I do enjoy being able to smell. 

What I remember is in no particular order, 
importance or
category:

cut grass

peonies in June

cookies baking upon coming home from school

crabapple juice dripping from a cheesecloth bag on a broomstick balanced between two wooden chairs

pink wild roses as we laid them out to decorate our camp cabin for morning inspection

asphalt on a hot summer day

new book pages

gasoline

Noxzema in a blue glass bottle

bleach

the girls change room in junior high school

manure being spread on a field

someone cooking cabbage down the apartment block hall

washing my hands with Dettol after shopping downtown at Eatons with my Mom

bicycle chain oil

walking into a lumber store holding my Grampa’s hand

Gestetner fluid

stinky farts

floor wax

breastmilk spit up

BO

repairing boats with fibreglass

popcorn

my Mother’s closet

Hagerty silver polish

a new car

autumn leaves

1 inch sisal rope my Dad used to fell trees

vomit under the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Red River Ex

heliotrope

Chanel No.5 in a teeny bottle in my Mother’s jewelry box

moth balls on my Mom’s fur coat

tobacco of my uncle’s pipe

spun cotton candy

canvas on the family tent trailer

bacon frying

shoe polish on Saturday nights in our basement growing up

peppermint tea

nail polish remover

pungent lilacs

smelly sock cheese

knotty pine boards

turpentine

fax machine paper

dog pooh on my shoe

vinyl records

fresh ground coffee being made in a vintage Proctor-Silex percolator

skunk whiff

Pike Street Fish Market

firecracker residue

leather belts

burlap sacks

typewriter ribbon

musty books

chopped onions

rubber inner tube at the beach

cigar smoke of my Great-Uncle’s big stogy

Johnson’s Baby Oil on my skin, trying to promote a tan (questionable teen activity)

Nana Ward’s oil paint box

Pledge furniture polish

mouldy bread

singed hair at the campfire making So’mores

dryer smell while walking down the back lane

dead fish flies

musk cologne I bought to feel sexy

marshmallows roasting on an open fire

Dustbane sweeping compound at Camp Shanti

Mucilage 

seaside harbour at Rockport, MA

Plasticine

menstrual blood

apple pie only my Mother could bake

opening the door of the cottage

Calamine lotion

Red Rose Orange Pekoe tea box

Vicks Vapo-rub

greasepaint in early theatre days

formaldehyde from dissecting a frog in grade 11 Biology

Misto-Van mixed with poop in the biffy

Avon scent from the kitten bottle of my girlhood

‘Off’ mosquito spray

the blooming cotoneaster bush under which my grandfather died

leaking propane

my newborn babies

the market in Old Jerusalem

Thanksgiving turkey

toasted hot-cross buns

Lifebuoy soap to remove the ‘itch’ at Clear Lake

Crayola crayon box

They are smells of misfortune, travel, danger, sex, food, fun, beauty, sickness, nature and humanity.
Categorizing them into individual lists is not that simple

Many times aromas mix together, unlike fine wine,
good and bad:

make-up and burnt dinner

marshmallows and singed hair

gasoline and smoke

flowers and embalming fluid

if I could have bottled just one
it would have been 
my lover’s pheromones