41. Garlic bread…

42. My children’s necks, especially after lots of good playing outdoors

43. The ocean

= = =

Wow. That was so much fun. And I noticed this morning there is another Bakersfield person here! How fun!

37. The Riordan Mansion in Flagstaff, it is an old craftsmany style mansion owned by a founding family and turned into a museum. Love that smell of “established and used”...as well as loved. Yes, a museum – but also a home.

38. Basements… a strange one, I know, but something about being underground and not the highest priority in one’s home. I like unfinished more than finished. Wine cellars have a really cool smell, too. I had almost forgotten about them….

39. Attics. Maybe it is that old book, old clothes-moth balls combination….

40. Orange groves, when you drive through one or walk through one and swim around in that scent… actually any citrus, still on the tree is pretty darn cool.

32. Wood cleaner like the Murphy’s Oil Soap I used on my floor a few minutes ago.

33. Believe it or not, Pine Sol. I like Pine Sol clean!

34. Baby powder

35. Cedar

36. York peppermint patties

26. L’Air du Temps (Abbas Kid reminded me of perfumes.)

27. Laundry, still warm, out of the drier

28. Old fashioned drawer sachets. (I need to get these again!)

29. Moonblossom…at the height of summer, at about… midnight or 1 AM….oh mi goodness. If you have never smelled one of these…

30. (and while we are on flowers) Lilacs, floating on the wind unexpectedly

31. Eucalyptus leaves…rubbed on the hands and then smelling the hands….

21. The Kern River bed along the Truxtun Extension, when it is dry… the ancient smells delight me.

22. San Miguel Commemorative Grove, at sunset, when it is crackly cool… love love love the smell that was there tonight.

23. Fire built with fire collected at the San Miguel Commemorative Grove, the wood that gave itself up to me to experience the presence of that place again.

24. Cabernet, outdoors, just after poured into the perfect glass.

25. Dried, end of summer grasses waving in the early evening air

Ahhh, yes. Scents.

16 – Coffee

17 – Pipe Tobacco Stores… not lit tobacco, but unlit, sitting in bins

18 – Lumber yards

19 – Fabric, still on the bolts

20 – Dark chocolate

11. Dittoed paper… or is it the fresh ink on the paper, like they used to use when I was a little girl, they rolled the paper over this ink pad thing and when you got the paper it was still a little bit wet? I would inhale into heaven. Weird, I know.

12. Old books

13. Wet leaves

14. Any natural “stuff” that is almost new dirt. Leaves, grass, paper, whatever. Love the new dirt smell.

15. Cinnamon

I am tired so will keep it like that and go to sleep. I’ve been awake for 22 hours straight. That’s a long time for me. Hugs everyone.

I found this writing I did a year ago and thought it fit here so beautifully… that I would ad it in, even if it isn’t specifically a 1-43 sort of thing.

Using the Sense of Smell to
Write Your Way to Ecstasy
© 2006
Julie Jordan Scott

They look sort of like what I imagine an
underwater lavender bush might look like. Their
arms are wavy, as if pushed about by an underwater
current. Their color is a bold, vivid purple, perhaps
like something I saw in the art of my beloved
movie, “Finding Nemo”.

I couldn’t help myself when I reached over to one
of these mystery plants and ran my hand along its
blossoms to gather up the scent, like I do with my
friends, the lavender bushes I know and love.

I put my hand up to my nose and breathed in, waiting
for ecstasy to enfold me.

I wish I had a camera on my face to see what
it registered.

“Mold. This smells like… the insides of an old person’s
home… filled with objects they have had for decades… it is
like the Hyde’s-house-smell.”

The home of my childhood next-door-neighbors was a
smell I loved and treasured, but certainly not wonderfully
earthy and bliss-launching as lavender or rosemary.

It is certainly not what I expected at all.

That circles us right around to the entire point of
today’s writing.

All it takes is one, deep breath in – and I am launched
into the stratosphere.

It is the best creative unblocker I can ever imagine or
recommend. I am thinking about our most primitive,
visceral creative tool, the one which cracks open dense
sheets of frozen ice – the sense of smell.

And it is so simple – we all have it available, right at
our beck-and-call.

I just walked down the hallway of my house. There is
something making a strange odor coming from what
we call “the garden room.” A nasty smell, indeed.
When I am done here, I will investigate further. I walked
back into my living room, where I am writing, and I smell
remnants of last night’s fire in the fireplace.

Last night Craig swept me away for a couple hours of
respite from my house. I commented, lightly, “We had a
fire in the fireplace, it was really awesome.” And he said,
“That’s it. I smell it on you,” like he had been quietly in
his
driver’s seat, wondering how to identify that dancing
smell-shadow that had arrived, unannounced when I
joined him in the car.

He was driving the car and we had been together for
all of about three minutes at that point, but that one
moment of witness made me stop and appreciate him
much more than I had before, even with our combined
admiration for bassist Leland Sklar.

So – if I were to decided to do some writing today, here
are several topics I could use that were inspired by the
sense of smell from my experiences:

1. Inspiration from Color (the plant – and art in Finding
Nemo- which might seem like it is from Visual, but it is
really from getting what I didn’t expect from the sense
of smell and recognizing beauty anyway.)

2. Memories from The Hyde’s House… so many from that
alone. Being treasured by older people who aren’t your
grandparents, creating memories for the beloved older
people in your life, opening your home to children,
the bridge between little ones and the elderly, deep
memories, deep joyful memories, creating tradition with
your “un-family family.”

3. Creating a Sensual Garden

4. When the Unexpected is what is just right

5. Wooing with the Senses

Helen Keller said, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports
us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.”

Right at the tips of our noses we have the magic of the deep
breath – the connection to the marvel of scent.

Your assignment is simple. Notice the scents which surround
you – and breathe in, deeply.

Notice what images arise as a result – and if you are feeling
especially creative – write them down. You might write a
sentence, a haiku, a paragraph, a vignette or “snapshot” moment
in time. It is up to you.

And for those of you wondering what the plant is? I don’t
know its name. Perhaps I will knock on the doors of one of its
owners to find out. I just figure if I don’t opt out of
the “knowing its name” certain ones of you – who I love as
dearly as life itself – will be writing to me asking me what
the mystery underwater lavender plant is called.

I just know I appreciate it – and I am connected to it from
this moment forward.

Activate Your Passion.

Ahhh, a voluptuaries delight, this goal is… oh man, I am practically drunk just coming up with the first ten smells so I will enter these and go lie down…LOL

1. Pumpkin spice cookies baking
2. Moist dirt
3. Freshly mowed grass
4. Baked apples with a hint of cinnamon, while being baked
5. Lavendar, as in the flowers still on the plant
6. Rosemary
7. the smell of the air when I walk out my door, in late fall,
in the early morning before the sun has come up
8. the scent of icy daggers of rain as I walk on the bluffs in January/February
9. the scent of warmth coming from mocha. Yes, I swear it is the warmth, the scent carrier I suppose? that does it for me
10. the smell of a freshly sharpened black mirado warrior pencil