The Nose Knows

In these days of Febreeze, Glade plug-ins and my favorite -- scented candles--(especially the fall season ones!), I got to thinking "when did we think we needed all these fake fragrances"?  What are we masking?

Okay, I know...we have a dog...an animal whose hygiene and manners are questionable...and sometimes, my cooking gets away from me...  and some dirty laundry may sit a bit too long.  But is all this covering up, overkill?

Of course, this had me thinking back to the scents of the past.   I remember, as a kid, the wonderful fragrance of burning leaves, in the fall.  That was before the days of the EPA and, although I know they're around for our health, I think they're killjoys- at least, in this case.  That's the way all of our  neighbors disposed of the leaves they had raked up....and it was wonderful!  And nothing evokes warm memories of my childhood more than when my Dad would build a fire in our fireplace at home or our sitting around the campfire at the pond where we ice skated.

For spring and summer scents, it has to be the beach and the ocean smells for me!  Because the fishy, briny smell really isn't all that pleasant, it must be the memories of great beach vacations that makes it special.  And the smell of chlorine takes me back to the carefree days of the neighborhood swimming pool and the kids we hung with.  The fragrance of carnations bring back good and bad memories for me...  The good, when the carnations were in the bouquet I carried as a flower girl in a family wedding...the bad, when the floral arrangements at my Grandfather's funeral also had carnations in them.   Smelling God's earth, when I'm gardening, is wonderful....not so much when that "earth" is mixed with sweat on football uniforms....

It's funny how it all works... Fragrances, scents and smells are complex and personal,  aren't they?   How different people interpret them differently...  I know that, as we get older, our sense of smell diminishes somewhat...that's a fact.  So I think I'll pull out the plug-ins and put away the Febreeze, so I can enjoy the real fragrances of life while I still can...and our dog better behave!