smell

In the northern hemisphere, the summer travel season is upon us. In addition to thinking about sight-seeing and noshing over the next few months, I want to encourage you to go here-hearing, place-touching and site-smelling.

That may sound a bit glib and silly, not only because of the wordplay and alliteration, but because it isn’t how we typically think of travel.

When people return from a voyage, they talk about the places they went, the people they met and the conversations they had. In terms of making sense memories, they may have lots of photos and videos, and tales of food and drink, from the fantastic to the horrific and everything in between.

Sound, touch and smell are often minor characters in the story. Maybe they took note of the smell of a particular flower, or the roar of a waterfall.

But did they touch anything they couldn’t have touched locally? Did they hear anything they’d never heard of before? Was there a smell they hadn’t encountered anywhere else?

Like a Small, Insistent Earthquake

About ten years ago, I booked a ferry from Stockholm to Turku, Finland. I was expecting a modest little boat for the overnight journey, and was astonished to arrive at the port and see what was essentially a cruise ship looming a dozen stories above the water.

As we boarded, I noticed many of my fellow passengers with folded-up carts and large empty bags were all rushing in the same direction. Curious, I followed the clamor, careful not to get trampled. So much for Scandinavian reserve.

After several twists and turns, I rounded a corner, and ran into a store teeming with activity: Ah. Booze. Now it made sense.

I remembered reading somewhere that the ferries were popular day-trips or night-trips for those buying duty-free alcohol, because the taxes on both sides of the Baltic were so high.

As I turned to leave, the engines engaged, pushing the ferry away from the dock. The massive ship shuddered at the force required to overcome its inertia, and all the bottles began to clink softly against each other.

I entered the store and tiptoed as quietly as I could through the aisles, listening to the highs and lows of the bottles delicately tinkling amid the din of alcohol purchases. Imagine being in a wine shop or liquor store during a mild but continuous earthquake, with thousands of glass bottles barely touching one another.

It lasted several minutes, and it remains one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard.

Nose and Skin

To retrieve scent memories, I have to think a little more deeply. Here are two examples:

The aroma of olive oil extraction that fills the countryside in Andalucía, Spain in mid-winter.
The incense-infused wood in the Todaiji temple in Nara. I went there at least a dozen times while living in Japan, and every time, in every season, I was captivated as soon as I stepped over the threshold.

I really had to scratch my head to come up with a touch memory — I guess I need to pay closer attention to storing tactile sensations in the future! Here’s one:

I used to climb the hill behind the apartment building where I lived on the edge of the sprawl surrounding Osaka, Japan. The hill faced the west, and much of the trail was in the sun, but there was one little pocket about halfway to the top that didn’t seem to get any sun at any time of day. There was nothing visually distinct about this part of the trail, but the quality of the air was entirely different: fresh and dramatically cooler.

I always looked forward to that spot, especially in the heat of July and August. Better than any air-conditioning!

Exercise

Before your next trip, get a pocket notebook. Divide it into three sections, however you like: Sound, Smell and Touch.

Even if you don’t have any travel plans, try doing this exercise on walks around your neighborhood or even the clothing aisles of a local mall. Seek remarkable sensations all around you, even in seemingly unremarkable places.

Every time you take a photo, sip a drink or munch a snack, make a point of entering something in each of these sense categories in your notebook.

Try to get in the habit of reaching for this notebook when you smell something or touch something interesting, in the same habitual way you might reach for your camera.

Describe the sensations in anyway you like: just tune in and capture it in some way.

(I’m a big fan of traveling with audio recorders, but for the purposes of this exercise, I want to encourage you to be in the moment, so please listen with your ears, not your microphone!)

And when you return, give your memories of these sensations top billing in the stories you tell: “You won’t believe what I touched this summer…”

Enjoy!

{ 0 comments }

Saint Albray Cheese

I do not know any words in English — or any other language — that could come close to describing the way Saint Albray cheese arrives in the nose. Aromatic is far too dainty. Acrid is too derogatory. And pungent isn’t strong enough.

Something emanates from it — almost a physical presence — that fills the nose and then the mouth. On more than one occasion, it has caused me to cough, as if encountering a chemical spill. Through experimentation I found that it becomes more itself if left out of the fridge for an hour or so to warm up. The taste is much more mild than the smell; rich and complex. If you can make it through the shroud of stench that surrounds it, this cheese is exquisite.

At least it is to me. I’ve tried to share my enthusiasm for it with others, often to their horror. One or two have found it ‘interesting’ while politely declining a second bite, but most have looked at me as though I’ve tried to poison them. Well, we all have different tastes.

However horrendous this cheese smells, it is still made for some reason or other. Its fans can’t all be stupid or wrong.

And the same goes for all sorts of films and books and works of art. It’s easy to dismiss something that we don’t understand, or that seems repellent on its face. But the simple fact that an idea continues to be part of our culture — that people still make that cheese or sing that song or tell that story — tells us something important about our culture, something we might miss if we go with our initial assumptions.

Questions

What, for you, is the cultural equivalent of Saint Albray? Think of an artist or art work that others respect and appreciate but that has always repelled you for some reason? Can you imagine why other people like it?

Have you judged it unfairly? Has your judgment caused you to miss important aspects, or avoid certain situations that might have been enjoyable?

Do you feel like you have to rationally justify your aesthetic tastes, or are you comfortable following your intuition where it does and doesn’t lead you?

Have you ever felt intimidated by works of art or experiences that others find profound, but that seem inscrutable to you? Or that don’t affect you in any way?

Exercise

Go see art you don’t expect to like. Art that’s not your style.

Sit through a film by a director that you can’t stand. Go to a retrospective for a sculptor that’s always caused you to quicken your pace through that part of the museum.

Pick a well-known creative work or cultural phenomenon that you have dismissed in the past, and re-experience it. Find at least one redeeming and worthwhile aspect that you didn’t experience on first exposure.

The goal of this exercise is not to change your sense of taste, but to get you out of the comfort zone of your assumed preferences. You may discover something new, or you may not, just as in any adventure.

This may seem like a perverse way to indulge your dislikes, but there’s always the possibility of discovering the unexpected, glimpsing a nuance you hadn’t perceived before, finding what your well-developed tastes had kept hidden.

Think of it as an opportunity to exercise aesthetic empathy: imagine experiencing art through the minds of others, and pay close attention to what they might see or hear or taste in it that you don’t.

Postscript

In the interest of thoroughness, I attempted relive my own experiences as I was writing this. Unable to find any Saint Albray in the store’s case, I asked the cheesemonger, who informed me that they no longer carried it because they ended up throwing so much of it out — unsold! Quelle horreur!

She suggested Chimay as a substitute. I like their beer, so I thought I’d try it. The verdict: I think the monks should stick to beer. Their cheese was to Saint Albray as Velveeta is to an aged cheddar, as Silly Putty is to potter’s clay. Bland to the palate, and completely lacking the nasal intoxication that makes Saint Albray so affecting. (But don’t let that bias stop you. Maybe you’d like it, even though I don’t!)

My search continues. In the interim, the myth must suffice.

{ 0 comments }