the possibility of knowing

image via  

Last week I finally got around to reading July's People by world-treasure Nadine Gordimer. I loved this bit, where Maureen discovers aspects of her husband Bamford's smell that she's never before had to consider:  

Bam tore off a length from one of the toilet rolls she had not forgotten to provide, and went out into the bush. He left the smell of his sweaty sleep behind him; she had not known, back there, what his smell was (the sweat of love-making is different, and mutual). Showers and baths kept away, for both of them, the possibility of knowing in this kind of way. She had not known herself; the odours that could be secreted by her own body. There were no windows in the mud walls to open wide and let out the sour smell of this man. The flesh she had caressed with her tongue so many times in bed —all the time it had been a substance that produced this. She made a cooking-fire outside and the smoke was sweet, a thorny, perfumed wood cracking to release it. The others—Martha—were wise to keep the little hearth-fire alive always in the middle of the huts. Only those still thinking as if they were living with bathrooms en suite would have decided, civilizedly, the custom was unhygienic and too hot.

The passage calls to mind Ayla Peggy Adler's wish to wind up in the right cave, and her beautiful evocation of how scent informs compatibility and desire. Do you know the smell of your cave-mate (to borrow Ayla's term)? Do you need to find yourself in an actual cave (or hut, as Maureen does in July's People) to know their smell, stripped of deodorants and birth control pills and climate control systems? I ask people again and again, What do you smell like? Do any of us know? 

Nosy Interview: Ariel Djanikian

Ariel In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula, © A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA), NASA

Ariel and I were classmates at the University of Michigan, where I quickly learned that she is the sort of person you delight in having on your end of the table, whether it's in workshop or at dinner. Her debut novel, The Office of Mercy, comes out this Thursday. While you're waiting to get your hands on it, visit Ariel's web site and follow her on Twitter. 

What do you smell like?
I smell like the coffee shops I frequent on a daily basis. Boots. High Efficiency Tide. Sharpie pens. My hair will net any ambient scent in its clutches: in the morning, that’s soap, but by night I’m frizzed out with the smell of pasta sauce and grilled whatever. Scrubbed clean, I think I smell like the high altitude air around the Caucasus Mountains touched with the verdant woodlands of Pennsylvania. 

What do you like to smell?
Baby spit up, the lingering scent of baby shampoo, the warm baby smell beneath folds of baby fat rolls, the ripe ambrosias of a soiled diaper, detected at close range through terrycloth pajamas. Old guitar strings. (Not that I play.) The stairwell in gyms. (Not that I go.) Decrepit rubber keys on an ancient Casio calculator. Yoda figurines. I like the smell of my house: dusty carpeting and tomatoes. Swimsuits drying on a bathroom hook. Bus exhaust, like from the school buses that used to line up beside our high school every afternoon. Plus the usual: onions frying, garlic roasting, pretzels from street vendors, masking tape, the sweetness of a heavy July afternoon just as it’s beginning to rain, poppies, kindling, acetone.

his good smell

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"I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-crazy and how he shows his gladness for what I cook him and joy for when I make him something, a poem or a cake, and how he is troubled when I am unhappy and wants to do anything so I can fight out my soul-battles and grow up with courage and a philosophical ease. I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body-shop to do just that. What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in my husband. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything."  --Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 

Nosy Interview: Sierra Nelson

Sierra (photographed by Rebecca Hoogs) in A Beautiful Boomerang Nebula, © Hubble Heritage Team 

Sierra's praises are sung so sincerely by Seattleites I hold dear that it is easy to feel fond of her despite the fact that we've not yet met. She seems to possess that rare stripe of real kindness that radiates even via e-mail. I Take Back the Sponge Cake, her poetry and art choose-your-own-adventure book collaboration with the artist Loren Erdrich, can be purchased here, and her new chapbook, "In Case of Loss,"can be found nestled in the Toadlily Press Quartet, Embark. Sierra is co-founder of the Vis-à-Vis Society, a collaborative poetic team; if you live in Seattle, you can see Dr. Ink (a.k.a Sierra) and Dr. Owning (a.k.a Rachel Kessler) in action and get some poetry-science inspiration at MOHAI this Thursdsay. 

What do you smell like?  
For many years I smelled like bread because I worked in a small collectively run bakery in Seattle (Touchstone). That bakery no longer exists, and I think the smell has probably worn off by now. Too bad.

And for a short while, also years ago, I drove a '73 Plymouth Gold Duster: original gold paint on the exterior, front seat an amazing sky blue.  She was so beautiful, and broke down almost constantly; I never knew enough about car repair to keep her happy, or maybe nothing could.  She always smelled faintly of gasoline, a smell that I like, and during that time we were together I'm sure that smell rubbed off on me as well.

I like the idea of perfume but rarely actually wear it. Last summer I was on the small Italian island of Ischia and I was taken with a perfume that smelled warm and green to me, something like cut grass. My Italian is only so-so, but I'm pretty sure the man at the counter commended my choice of "scent of a man." Maybe that's why I liked it! I don't wear it often, but when I do, I find myself surreptitiously putting my nose to my wrist like I am receiving a message from a secret agent.

People have sometimes described a smell they associate with me, and for a long time I wasn't sure what it was because I wasn't wearing a particular scent.  But through some sleuthing I think I've traced it, at least in part, to a leave-in conditioner that lists its main ingredient as avocados but actually smells like honey.
 
What do you like to smell?
I like to shake hands with rosemary when I pass by, especially when it's growing in a gigantic bush as it often does in the Pacific Northwest (including in my front yard). I also really love the smell of sagebrush just after a thunderstorm (I did a lot of my growing up in Nevada, so the scent is nostalgic for me of the silver-grey mountains in Reno and Carson City).  I love the warm, dusty smell of typewriter keys (especially on an old electric that really hums and heats up).  And the red-green smell walking through a cedar forest.  I used to live in a building that always smelled deliciously like laundry soap (the basement laundry room windows were right by the front entrance). I like the progression of smells when making soup (onions and carrots, chopping fresh herbs, how everything smells as it's simmering together).  I love the briny blue smell of the sea, especially when it appears somewhat unexpectedly (like from a seashell picked up from a windowsill, or on a city street when the wind shifts just right). 

nosy recommends: weleda wild rose pampering body lotion

background Marimekko Ruhtinatar print via

I tend to prefer oils to lotions, but this creamy & dreamy new Wild Rose Pampering Body Lotion from Weleda may make a convert of me. En route to the San Juan Islands from Seattle, we stopped at the Skagit Valley Co-Op (recommended for lunch as well as for any island-snacking stock-up needs) where I picked up a little foil sample packet of this moussey wonder. I loved it so much that our first stop back on the mainland was the co-op, where I made a beeline right for the Weleda display, anxious to slather more of this cream on my dry winter self. (It is challenging to describe how delighted I am whenever I use this product without devolving into a crazed advertorial territory.) 

The bottle's not messing around with this "pampering" promise, and the lotion forms a silky, protective barrier on your skin immediately after you smooth it on. And, oh, the fragrance! It's glossy and chewy with just a smidge of powdery softness, appropriate since your skin will be so soft also. The rose is thorny, buttery, garden fresh, and paired with some greener plants that make the bouquet bright and clean but not soapy, refreshing but still comforting, and long-lasting in both function and fragrance (but the latter is subtle enough to not compete too much with your perfume). It leaves skin absurdly soft even through the especially vigorous hand-washings flu season inspires.

image via 

Related encouragement: Fear not rose! Many Americans seem unnecessarily wary of rose, and I get the sense that the aversion was formed at an early age, against dusty little guest soaps still in their faded tissue-paper wrappers. Try again! Let rose-gurus Katie Puckrik ("Wearing [Un Rose] makes me feel like a baby bee crawling around in the most enormous, lascivious, skyscraper rose to ever bloom.") and Elisa Gabbert ("Over time [Rossy de Palma] gets slightly sweeter, but continues to smell gleamy and green and squeaky clean without resorting to soapy or laundry musk notes, and the crispness keeps it unisex.") nudge you along, and open your nose to rose paired with incense, leather, musk, and wood. By any of its names, and not always sweet.

Nosy Interview: Roland Satterwhite

Roland in Zeta Oph: Runaway Star, © NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope

Roland contacted me after Ayla Peggy Adler's interview was posted, nominating his sister, Zanna, who he describes as having an amazing sense of smell, for an interview (Zanna, I hope you'll share what you're smelling one of these days). He was kind enough to submit to a nosy interview himself (one  hazard/benefit of nominating anyone is that I will definitely ask you what you smell like, too). Visit Roland's web site here, and check out his Facebook page to learn more about his music and upcoming performance dates. 

What do you smell like?
it is hard to answer the question what i smell like. but mostly i smell like my armpits because i usually don't wear deodorant, unless i'm going on a date, or know that i'll be nervous....i like my armpit smell.  the truth is that i like it more, the longer i don't shower, but i love to shower, so it usually doesn't collect more than 24 hours. My dream is to have BO that is as good as some people i've met.  I can't figure out if it is their diet, or their genetic makeup.....i think cumin/curry is the flavor of BO that is my favorite...you know what i mean?

What do you like to smell?
i love the smell of:  
gasoline,
paint thinner,
permanent marker,
cow shit, 
straw bales,
pencil shavings, 
graphite dust, 
stinging nettles,
blackberry bushes,
railroad ties,
wet asphalt after a long dry spell,
i love the smell of outside--after emerging from an underground car park, which for me is nauseating,
gillette shaving cream,
smell of my armpits in the morning if i slept long and well,
a lot of pakistanis i know,
the senegalese guys at mariana's restaurant on reichenberger street,
onions frying in olive oil,
tomato plants,
pine needles,
book binding glue is deliciously whiffy,
puget sound (Puuuuuuuuget sound),
the lungs of a lover,
any cotton that has spent the night outside,
rain,
my old polyester shirt,
bleach, when it is faint,
her shampoo, when a woman with long hair jogs in the opposite direction,
cumin

the air from here

All critters created by the LBJ Conser-clay-tion Club.

As I was last year around this time, I'm breathing Pacific Northwest air right now, remarking nearly every single time I step outside at how incredible it smells here, how you really forget that when you live here, how invigorating I find it, all this mountain-ocean-pine-ancient-glacier-freshest-coffee air. My husband usually breathes in deep and agrees, even though he has heard at least one hundred iterations of this monologue since we stepped outside at SeaTac and I exclaimed how even the airport-adjacent air, not traditionally known for its ability to invigorate, is better here. And it is!

LBJ Conser-clay-tion creation.

Better even than airport parking lot air is San Juan Island air, and that's what I've been fortunate enough to breathe these past few nights, gaping up at what seems like all of the stars between nearly all of the pine trees, dumbstruck by the beauty of this neon-mossed, pine-studded, sea-whipped island, wondering at how lucky we are just to get to walk around on this planet, and when we get to breathe in air that makes us feel especially alive it seems like too much almost, too bracing to keep even for one split second in our lungs.

LBJ Conser-clay-tion creation.

Nosy Interview: Cody Walker

Zia & Cody in the NGC 5189: An Unusually Complex Planetary Nebula, © NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage

What wonderful luck to meet Cody during a frigid January residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2006. His laughter melts snow! When we returned to Seattle, where we were both living at the time, Cody proceeded to introduce me to the greatest people in Seattle, for which I'm forever grateful. Visit Cody's web site and buy his book, Shuffle and Breakdown, here. 

What do you smell like?
After reading through all the interviews in this series, I feel a bit like the guy in “Annie Hall” who, after hearing about the many meetings being conducted around him, complains, “All the good meetings are taken.” All the good smells have been taken, too! Because really and truly: I smell like potting soil and haunted estates and honey. I think I may even smell like a sparrow! But OK. I followed the lead of many others and asked my partner what I smelled like. After a disconcertingly long pause, she said, “Like a good guy”—which was singularly unhelpful. (She’s a fiction writer; she could’ve just made something up.) Maybe I smell like Skin Trip? Or mulched leaves? Or a tennis court? Or maybe a chimpanzee—that’s it. A freakishly clean chimpanzee.

What Do You Like to Smell?
I like a lot of smells that aren’t on everyone’s list: anchovies, for instance, and kimchi, and skunk spray. I like almost any of those glass-enclosed candles that smell like cookies or suntan lotion or pie. I like the earthy upended-ness of the Ho Rain Forest on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. I like almond steamers and leather boots. I like Natures Paradise Coconut Body Mist (which I use as an air freshener in my daughter’s bedroom, and which pleases me so much that I’m willing to forgive the missing apostrophe in “Natures”). And because I went to a hippie college in Florida when I was nineteen, my true elixir is a mix of sweat, patchouli, and clove cigarettes.

happy new year

fresh year at Fresh Pond

Happy New Year, dear Nosy readers! How is your 2013 smelling so far? I wore Avignon plus some dainty dabs of 7 Billion Hearts (the perfume absolute version) to ring in the New Year, and my smell felt solemn, human, and true. 

chartreuse + champagne

I also wore sequins (pictured above), as one should when ushering in a new year. But January rarely feels fizzy to me; it's a serious month, usually a cold one, and I think more during these short (but thankfully lengthening) days of loss than I do during January's neighbors.

I've been, and will probably continue to be, a bit remiss with regular posts. But Nosy Interviews (the best part!) will be back next week, and I'll continue to post those consistently, even as I otherwise hibernate a little bit to work more on my novel, to open fewer tabs in Chrome, to cook with greater care, and to strive to be as I smell: true, true, true.