My sense of smell usually seems irrelevant when compared with my aural and visual presence. I tend to prefer to take information in through my ears and eyes, like I suppose most of us do, but my nose knows a lot more than I usually give it credit for.

Our one misgiving moving into this place centered around a persistent musty funk which lives in the finished room in the basement. The intensity of it comes and goes, but lingers, and I’m eyeing various products which promise to eliminate odors. These promises strike me as like proposing to strike me deaf to resolve a troubling noise or blind to eliminate the unsightly. I’d rather make the basement room smell like Christmas.

That smelly room is our last staging area; uninhabited. I filled up its bookshelves, hoping to overwhelm its lonely dampness with well-read book smell. We took supper down there last night, me hoping the Sunday dinner gravy smell would supplant the empty moistness, but it didn’t seem to touch it. A dehumidifier might be in its future.

The very newness of this place seems to have heightened my sense of smell. Since I have so much experience being nose-blind, I have no reliable way to tell if these newly noticed smells qualify as trouble. First, just now, they certainly seem different and not even a little bit like Christmas. I will take some time before I do battle with what might just be difference, hopeful that my smell palate might mature into understanding and acceptance. By the new year, I should have enough experience to make a more meaningful long term choice. Until then, I’ll keep my eyes open and try to imagine that the basement already smells like Christmas, too.

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Homefull Homeless