Weird Smells

Amidst the chaos, our nervous systems need all the support they can get...

Photo by Mulyadi on Unsplash

My apartment smells weird. Well, it did, until recently.

It was the first thing I noticed when I walked into it with the leasing agent–smell first, view second, the second eclipsing the first, and the first mutable, so here I am.

I love the word weird. It kind of sounds like its definition, which changes depending on context, user, and intention. At some point, while walking through Spain last fall, my Camino friend Monique and I tried to explain its meaning to Patrice, a native French speaker. Weird escaped him, despite having an excellent command of English. Monique and I looked at each other, alternating taking a stab at what weird means in different contexts, and we gave up, all of us more confused than when we started. It was like when Australian Maria told a Swedish woman that a fellow pilgrim had the “man-flu.” It didn’t translate.

When I use the word "weird" to describe the smell of my apartment, I am not using it in the context Tim Walz used to describe JD Vance, nor in the context of me laughing hysterically with old friends and agreeing that we are weird for guffawing at something so silly and esoteric. With respect to my apartment, I mean weird is odd, unfamiliar, and unusual.

Smell is a big deal to our brains. The Olfactory nerve is Number 1 of the 12 Cranial Nerves, and it makes a beeline to the hippocampus and amygdala without passing the sensory cortex. This makes it unique. The hippocampus plays a huge role in memory and emotional processing. The amygdala is a primitive part of our brain and is important in our fight-or-flight response. Smell can trigger emotions and feelings that set off a cascade of neurotransmitters that make us feel great and relaxed or ready to run. The smell of your baby’s head or your beloved’s shirt floods the body with oxytocin, creating a bond that forms well below the logical machinations of our frontal lobe. It’s not supposed to be logical. It’s primitive.

When I think of the smells that stir up stuff in me, I think about chlorine, creosote bushes after a rainstorm, salty marshes and oceans, coffee beans roasting, freshly cut grass and wild onions, my old dog Martha, maple sap boiling into syrup, my son’s room long after he left for college, my daughter’s perfume and vanilla scented candles. Those smells are familiar and homey and linked to emotions that I want to recall and roll around in. These smells make my nervous system content, regulated, happy.

I am bombarded with weird and new smells regularly. My daily walks are not only delightful visual feasts, they are a smorgasbord of smells, many of which I don’t want to imprint on my memory. At times, I have felt like Cousin Charlotte in A Room with a View when she is prompted by Eleanor Lavish to inhale deeply to experience a “true Florentine smell.” Cousin Charlotte gags into her handkerchief mid-inhale, and I have found myself doing the same when I walk down Division Street in Eastern Market when the meat vendors have their doors rolled up. It’s a sharp contrast to the inviting smells of my new favorite coffee shop a few blocks away, where the aroma of freshly baked pastries and roasting coffee beans fills the space.

I thought that after some time, my apartment would start to smell like me; that I wouldn’t open the door and think, “Huh, that’s weird.” I realize this building is old, and there are layers of paint and new flooring and old flooring and lots of history. So many decades of other people living and cooking and doing their thing have imbued this space. I am sure prior residents would smell my stuff and think it was weird. But I wanted my place not to smell like other people. I wanted it to smell like home.

Why does it matter?

I lack the words to describe how upsetting and destabilizing the world has become since January 20th of this year. When bedrock principles like due process are thrown out the window, and Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are aligned with the rest of the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch goes rogue, we are in deep. When people like Stephen Miller, who lack empathy and can rationalize their cruelty, are affecting policy, all bets are off. And our nervous systems know this.

Whatever we are up against, it is a marathon, not a sprint. Unfortunately, we aren’t even close to mile 24 when many runners start talking to dead people and want to give up, and are convinced they absolutely can’t under any circumstances make the next 2.2 miles to the finish line. We must take care of ourselves and our nervous systems, otherwise, we are no good to anyone. We won’t get to the finish line. So, yeah, smell is important. Our nervous systems need all the support they can get.

Last Saturday, I returned to Eastern Market the day after gagging at the JD Vance weird smells on Division Street, and the place had transformed into its normal Saturday self. Food and flower and hot sauce and candle and clothing vendors lined the sheds. Smells of perogies and French fries and brats filled the air. It was hard to hear anyone over the din of voices.

I found myself at the end of Shed 5, in front of dozens of essential oil jars. Before I knew it, a woman with blue lipstick was asking me what kind of scent I was looking for, and although I really wasn’t looking, I caved, as I am known to do in the face of a skilled and stealthy salesperson. She started dipping wooden wicks into different concoctions, and I answered, “No, that is a little too perfumy,” or “Closer, but it’s too fruity. I like something cleaner,” and “Yes, lavender. Anything with lavender.” The next thing I knew, she had taken two blends and handed them to Jenna, who was behind the tables, to mix them. Well over six feet tall, Jenna’s hair and face were covered in beautiful scarves, revealing only her amber eyes and sparkly gold stripes on her nose and the place between her brows. She combined the two oils, smelled the new brew, and said, “Oh, this is nice! What should we call it?”

I froze. I come up with good ideas at inappropriate or ineffectual times, not when asked. After what was verging on an awkward silence, she asked, “What is your name?”

I knew that one, “Kristine.”

“Oh, that’s cute. We’ll name it Kristine.”

I rolled some of that beautiful brew on my wrist and must have looked like a weirdo walking home because I couldn’t stop smelling my arm. It smelled so good! As soon as I walked into my apartment, I rinsed out my diffuser and loaded it up with my signature scent. The diffuser rarely rests now.

In the days since, when I open my door, shaking off the unfamiliar smells of the stairwell and hallway, my nervous system says, “Ahhhh.” My apartment smells like home, no longer weird, and that is something, especially now.