Door Number 3

In starting this blog, my expectation was that I would write about my present experiences of living and eating without a sense of smell. In fact, I imagined beginning with a literal entry space. The apartment from which I just moved had a room that I didn't understand. It was the first room you entered when you came into my home, but it was far too big for a hallway or a vestibule. It was located between the kitchen and the living room, but with a door to the common hall on one side of the room and one to my porch on the other and with a giant protruding closet enclosed by a curtain in the middle, it did not seem appropriate as a dining room (or any other sort of room that one would occupy for an extended period of time; in fact, I think my landlady had previously used it as a waiting room for her clients who saw her for therapy). Without any clearer identity or use, I dubbed it my passage. I considered filling it with souvenirs or other collections, but in the end I stopped at decorating it with images of various places: a giant map of the US by Jasper Johns so that I could review the route I'd traveled from Santa Cruz to Northampton, a pair of paint-by-number portraits (one of a cabin at the seaside, another of a house in the snowy woods -- which, before my move, had been an image of a place other than where I was), a cheap photo of Paris. The room was therefore supposed to represent more glamorous "passages" and spaces of my imagination or my past life. But instead it was the room I passed through on my way to the kitchen.

In the evenings I would take this route ritualistically, compulsively, almost unconsciously.  In I would go for some crackers and cheese. Not quite satisfied, I would return a few moments later for some soy crisps or pop chips or some other salty delivery system. Still unsatisfied, thinking perhaps what I craved was sweet rather than salty, but unwilling to commit fully, I would return for a small cupful of dry cereal. Ultimately, that was merely a transition to the hard stuff: a trip shortly thereafter would bring a cookie, another would return the (modest) bounty of a small piece of dark chocolate or three salty-sugary chocolate-coated almonds. Sometimes I would tell myself perhaps what I wanted was fruit or a nice plate of greens, and in fact I could appear to trick myself into being satisfied by a little helping of pre-cut pineapple. But more often than not, I would either start over again with the carbs, varying a bit – maybe even throwing in a piece of toast with blueberry jam – or, taking a look at the empty plates and cups and napkins accruing in the living room, I would finally admit defeat.

At some point – and I can't say exactly when – I became consciously aware of this nightly ritual, this lost and senseless habit. My first thoughts were, "Oh my god, I am a compulsive eater." And not long after (it might have been hours or days or even weeks; I might have had this revelation more than once) I asked myself, "What is it that I actually want?" Most new anosmics experience a loss of pleasure in eating. I refused to accept this loss – of pleasure and of eating – and attempted to relive gustatory sensations again and again and again and again. Such understanding of my own habits was not entirely new to me: within the first year following my surgery I realized a compulsion to repeat that which I could never fully experience again when I ate handful after handful of nuts, or multiple Tootsie Rolls, neither of which meant the same that they used to. What was different this time was the variety of foods I was sampling, so that it had snuck by me. But I realized, as I stood one night in the entry-passage, that my repeated tour of the kitchen and pantry was part of the same impulse – and that the lack of satisfaction I first experienced six years ago would remain constant now, too. Upon this realization, in turn, I decided to use the passage as a place of contemplation and decision-making. There I would pause en route and ask myself what exactly I wanted. Sometimes my response would be, quite honestly, "something I can no longer have." And other times I would conjure an actual object of desire based on that which I could actually taste. Imagining my desire was sometimes all I needed, and I could just return to the living room. But it might also bear fruit – rarely actual fruit, mind you – which had a very particular sensation: the creaminess of milk with the crunchiness of cereal, the sweetness and warmth of a cup of rooibos tea, a frozen citrus popsicle, or a cold, soft ice-cream sandwich (to which I was initially drawn because they are called "Cuties").

I loved that apartment in many ways, but I hated that room. Too big for a hallway, too much in the middle of things for anything else. In the end, I guess, it just gave me pause.