I Smell Bacon (Brush with Olfaction part 1)

My first brush with olfaction was in September 2005, not quite a year after my surgery. I was standing at the sink, loading the dishwasher at my dad's apartment while he cooked us breakfast. Suddenly I was overcome with a strange sensation -- just the feeling that "something was happening to me." It began to dawn on me that I was smelling -- the smell of bacon. I wanted to announce it to my dad, but it felt so unbelievable. I was also searching for the right words because I didn't just want to announce "I smell bacon," which, as a child, my naughty friends and I would say if we saw the cops. So I stood there frozen; and then: "I'm smelling bacon." "Yes," my dad said, "I'm cooking it now." "No, Dad," I explained, "I can smell it." It was early enough for me to believe this was a sign that my smell would return, but looking back I also knew I was "smelling" differently. After all, I only smelled the bacon -- not the eggs, the dirty dishes, my dad's cat. I began to theorize that the particles or molecules or whatever entered the air through the steam of the grease, allowing me to encounter this sensation through my skin.

In fact, almost all of my brushes with olfaction since -- maybe 3 times a year -- have had to do with steam, or something else liquid released into the air. Several months later I was sitting on the bed in the Visiting Scholar's Suite (aka "Amie's Room," alternatively "Murray's Room") at Tara and Rob's. Same thing. I experienced a sensation that was at once alien and familiar. Orangey. I realized I was smelling the room deoderizer I'd sprayed to attempt to cover Arlo's scent. I sat frozen on the bed, trying to consume it completely, afraid it would vanish if I moved.

Later that year, July, I think, I was in a funny little apartment in Hove (UK). As I was washing the dishes at the sink an eerie yet delightful sensation came over me. I can remember pausing, my eyes towards the window without seeing anything (maybe the little red couch in my peripheral vision), listening to the sound of the sea gulls down the block, and trying to map the sensation and then, once conscious of what it was, the actual scent. Orange juice. I wished I could smell the sea air as well, but I stood there grateful that a child hadn't finished the orange juice in the glass.

Last night it happened again. This was one of my most fleeting and most unfamiliar scents. I was in a wc in a public restroom at the yoga retreat where I've now been for three days. At this point when the olfactory sensation comes I become aware of what it is a little more quickly. In this case I knew I was "smelling" something but not sure what. Let me say, for the record, given the location, it was not an unpleasant scent. But it was unfamiliar. My first thought was that it was a candle, but then I realized it may well be the lemon-sage body lotion I'd just applied to my feet, my legs, my arms. But I was struck with a dilemma: I didn't want to remain in this tiny room yet was afraid movement would make the smell disappear. I took a chance, and it was gone.