Spider-Sense

I think I might have a super power…

The other day I was in a supermarket with my friend while he chose a packet of teabags to keep in his office. The beautiful smells of all the different teas mingling in the air hit me as soon as we turned into the aisle. When I mentioned it, I was surprised to find that my friend couldn’t smell it. It seemed so strong to me that I found it hard to imagine how he couldn’t.

This was the first time I truly realised just how sensitive my sense of smell is.

I take great pleasure in smell. I love the relationship it has to memory and I love the richness it adds to life. If I come across a smell I like, I breathe deeply; drink in as much of it as I can. I like the smell of new books – some more than others – and I’m prone to sticking my nose between the pages and breathing in all they have to offer. I love the smell of clean washing and fresh baking; of coffee before the water’s been added and the ground just after it’s rained. These smells are loved by all sorts of people so it never really occurred to me that I might be more sensitive to them than others.

We’ve had some problems with condensation and damp recently and I’ve been quite unsettled by the associated smells. It’s become a running joke in our house because Dave can’t smell them and I, in contrast, have spent quite a lot of time ranting with my nose pressed to the curtains. I thought it was probably either me being affected psychologically because the concept of damp was upsetting to me, or him just being very unobservant. Dave, of course, has already proposed the idea that I might be unusually sensitive to smells, but I never believe him about anything until I reach the same conclusion on my own!

My friend, who’s more scientific than I am, told me that all our senses are dampened by our bodies, which put up barriers to stop us from receiving the full extent of the sensory experiences available to us. It would be too much, he says, for us to smell all there is to smell and it wouldn’t be of much practical use to us in the modern world anyway. Some people just are more sensitive than others.

And maybe I’m one of them.

When it comes to things like damp, I’d rather this wasn’t the case… but in general, it feels like a great super power to have. The pleasure I get from positive smells is so great that I will happily take the negative alongside.

Image by Elucidate