I returned from a ten-day vacation earlier this week. I was in the woods without telephone, without Internet, without running water, and without clocks. I was in the woods of northern Minnesota, USA, in a lakeside cabin my dad built in the 1960s. It was a great time, and what made it more magical for me were how the smells of the place, its vegetation, and its winds made the vacation all the richer for me.
I wont say that my experience talking about and thinking over fragrances here at Basenotes made me notice the smells of the place I went to, but once there I was shocked at how much what I smelled contributed to my feeling of the place and realization of how special and far away from my regular life it was. Thanks to talking about the effect of fragrances here, I simply reveled in the experiences of my nose and I tried hard to get everyone with me to experience the vacation through their noses too.
Vacation destination posters are made to please the eye. Movies filmed in exotic places show us eye-candy. National Geographic magazine shows pictures. But youre not there, youre not in a place, youre not able to see that it is completely different and an engine of unique thoughts, unless you can smell it. And when you can, what a difference it makes.
Rolling black dirt ground covered by blankets of soft, velvet green moss. The dry flaky mossy growth on the sides of trees and the soft, thick, almost damp bark under the dry, light olive flaky moss pedals.
Lake water up your nose from falling into it backwards or diving deep. The different way the water smells four inches under your nose depending on if its shady evening or sunny afternoon as you paddle to keep afloat. Eight inches higher and it would smell different.
Wood smoke. Pine groves in the sun, in the rain. Rain on the damp ground and all the leaves. The sun burning the rain off old wooden planks. Coffee. Potatoes. Soap as you lather and bathe in the lake in the morning sun.
Theres surely some grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence jealousy going on here, and after all, I WAS on vacation, but the richness of the difference, the way I knew being there wasnt at all like being in my apartment, truly what made being there different from changing a channel, shifting a theater scene, was what Ive learned about the power of the nose, and Ive learned it here.
All Basenotes members will notice the same thing in their coming travels and experiences of places.
--Chris
I wont say that my experience talking about and thinking over fragrances here at Basenotes made me notice the smells of the place I went to, but once there I was shocked at how much what I smelled contributed to my feeling of the place and realization of how special and far away from my regular life it was. Thanks to talking about the effect of fragrances here, I simply reveled in the experiences of my nose and I tried hard to get everyone with me to experience the vacation through their noses too.
Vacation destination posters are made to please the eye. Movies filmed in exotic places show us eye-candy. National Geographic magazine shows pictures. But youre not there, youre not in a place, youre not able to see that it is completely different and an engine of unique thoughts, unless you can smell it. And when you can, what a difference it makes.
Rolling black dirt ground covered by blankets of soft, velvet green moss. The dry flaky mossy growth on the sides of trees and the soft, thick, almost damp bark under the dry, light olive flaky moss pedals.
Lake water up your nose from falling into it backwards or diving deep. The different way the water smells four inches under your nose depending on if its shady evening or sunny afternoon as you paddle to keep afloat. Eight inches higher and it would smell different.
Wood smoke. Pine groves in the sun, in the rain. Rain on the damp ground and all the leaves. The sun burning the rain off old wooden planks. Coffee. Potatoes. Soap as you lather and bathe in the lake in the morning sun.
Theres surely some grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence jealousy going on here, and after all, I WAS on vacation, but the richness of the difference, the way I knew being there wasnt at all like being in my apartment, truly what made being there different from changing a channel, shifting a theater scene, was what Ive learned about the power of the nose, and Ive learned it here.
All Basenotes members will notice the same thing in their coming travels and experiences of places.
--Chris
