The Joy of Smelling
Some years ago, I lost my sense of smell. It was profoundly unsettling. I had always been sensitive to odors, pleasant and unpleasant. Now, I was unable to smell a gas leak, or spoiled milk, or whether my clothes were clean enough not to offend.
It wasn’t a sudden change, as is the case with COVID-19 loss of smell, but a gradual diminishing of my ability to smell, and consequently, to taste. Without smell, taste devolves into the basic sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and even these become muted and dull. Umami goes out the window.
Although I am not a gourmet chef by any means, I love to cook, for myself and for those I love, and I got a great deal of enjoyment from trying new dishes both at home and abroad. My cooking was hampered by my inability to taste and season food appropriately -- I had to restrict my cooking to tried-and-true recipes or rely on others to tell me if I had put in enough or too much seasoning. I found myself eating more than I usually did, in a mad attempt to wrest some flavor and enjoyment from the food that I used to find flavorful but now was bland. “Mouth feel”, a component of taste that I had not thought of much before now became paramount.
At some point, with the help of Dr. Google, I realized that I might have nasal polyps. I consulted an ENT who confirmed the diagnosis and arranged for these by now huge obstructions to be surgically removed. (The surgeon later told me that the removal was “like sucking raw egg yolk from all your sinus cavities”. Surgeons in general seem to have very graphic ways of describing things. ) My recovery was not without issue, as the anesthesia used caused intense feelings of dysphoria, but eventually my sense of smell returned, although not as intense as it once was.
All was fine until a few months ago, in the midst of the pandemic, when I once again realized that I could not smell and taste. At first it was sporadic, with some days “tasty” and some days not, but I eventually lost it all again. Not having been sick with the coronavirus as far as I knew, and knowing that nasal polyps have an unfortunate tendency to grow back, I once again consulted a specialist, who examined my nasal cavities and said he could see some “polypy thingies” deep in the back. He prescribed a course of antibiotics to get rid of any infection and steroids to reduce the size of the swellings. Within a few days, I was waking up and smelling the coffee once again.
This time around, I am reveling in my ability to smell and taste, conscious that it may be transitory. All manner of spices have re-entered my diet: garlic, curry, fresh and dried peppers, cumin, paprika, cilantro -- I revel in them all. Coffee is heaven, both for the nose and the mouth. I’ve taken to savoring a mid-morning latte as well as my morning joe. Kim chi, homemade pickled onions, dills and sweet gherkins all are added as side dishes to meals. Butter pecan ice cream, toast with peanut butter, fried eggs over easy are everyday foods to be enjoyed and committed to memory in case I lose them again.
And then there are the non-food smells that I didn’t realize were missing until they were back: freshly washed towels and sheets, old books at the used bookstore, that odd amalgam of hot concrete and earthworm that sidewalks exude after a summer rain, my newborn grandson’s scalp and his suddenly filled diaper. Even a poopy diaper can be a cause to rejoice, simply because I can smell it!
Yes, unpleasant smells have also reappeared. Of course, I was always aware of the fact that for most people, life is quite smelly, even when it wasn’t for me. People fart, people burp, people sweat. It all adds up and it’s all around us. I learned once again that twenty-five people in a hot yoga class, sweat streaming from every pore, quickly becomes a swamp.
When I was a child, the smell of old people was particularly distressing. My grandparents always seemed to smell of mothballs. Old people had bad breath, probably, I now realize, from ill-fitting dentures and receding gums along with a lack of good dental hygiene. Old people’s homes smelled musty and shut-in, as if no windows were ever opened to breezes. Old people also had that “old-person smell” that seems to linger, even if they washed their clothes and their bodies.
Now that I am actually older than my grandparents were when they offended my childish nose, I am also sensitive to the possibility that I might be odorous to others. I brush and floss my teeth daily. I have regular dental cleanings and checkups. I shower every day, especially after yoga class. I remember women in the older generation wearing clothes that were frankly dirty, simply because they hadn’t noticed that they smelled bad, and so I scrupulously change my clothes, erring on the side of overwashing “just in case”.
The sense that I might radiate that instantly recognizable “old-person” smell, despite my best efforts, bothered me. Researching it online, I found it is indeed a real phenomenon, one due to the changes in body chemistry as we age. Just as a teenage boy smells different than he did as a toddler, so too does a person smell different at sixty than he or she did at thirty. There is a compound, only detected in people over 40, called 2-nonenal. It’s a byproduct of the breakdown of certain fatty acids. Levels of 2-nonenal appear to increase with age. The more 2-nonenal, the more “old-person” smell, described as “mildly sweet and musty but not unpleasant” in one online article. Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I find it unpleasant, and don't want to smell it on myself.
Researching further, I found that in Japan, where matters of aging are treated more seriously than here, given the current demographic skewing toward an increasingly aging population, they have found a solution to this nonenal odor. It is persimmon soap! I ordered some straight from Japan, via Amazon, and I now shower with it daily. Does it help? I’m not sure. I don’t smell “old”, but maybe I’m just losing my sense of smell again!