I am not deaf or blind, but I have lost a vital link, a means of perceiving my world.  I am anosmic:  I have lost my sense of smell.  Like most people, I hadn’t even known that this loss had a name.  The recognition that few things smelled as they once did had taken time to sink in, and at first I thought I scarcely missed it.   

Smell is the most primitive sense, a trigger to memory that instantly plunges one back to the past.  The fragrance of the first lipstick I ever wore, an orangy-pink wax in a tiny push-up tube from the five-and-dime, or of my first grown-up perfume, Interdit, worn for my first real romance, evokes that moment without conscious thought.  I do not merely remember; I have become that person again.   

Smell, like other senses, does not discriminate.  Smell perceives not only the beautiful, the enticing, the comforting, but also the odious, the rank, the stink of life.  Aprils of my childhood meant fragrant purple lilacs piled into the car, spring arriving at our dingy city apartment.  Orange blossoms that saturated the air on mornings after rain always smelled of hope and promises.  Onions simmering in butter made my mouth water with the prospect of savory delights, and houses permeated by the smell of cakes baking seemed to be homes filled with comfort and love and happy children.   

The pungent odor of wet dog evoked every beloved pet I have ever owned, and the rankness of skunk conjured memories of startled awakenings, the certainty that the stinking visitor was surely in bed with me.  The odors of urine and boiled cabbage lingered inescapably in dank hallways of New York apartment buildings, possible homes with impossible odors.  

After I stopped smoking, the reek of cigarettes that permeates the clothes of smokers made my eyes water and my throat close up.  All of these--the pleasant and the unpleasant--all these smells of my past are outside my experience now.  

Anosmia brings a double whammy: not merely loss of smell but the loss of much of the sense of taste.  Sweet, salty, bitter, spicy--these tastes reside on the tongue and are undisturbed by the loss of smell.  But all the subtle odors of food, the definition that makes a banana taste like itself and not like an apple, a piece of cinnamon toast different entirely from a piece of toast simply buttered--these tastes are missing.  My husband has to taste my cooking because unsampled food may be either bland as cream or spicy and discordant enough to cause its more unwary consumers to cringe.  

Anosmics in the kitchen tend to oversalt or overspice to make up for the lack of more subtle flavors.  Cooks rely on instinct and previous experience, but without a sense of taste, I can never be sure of the effect on my more sensitive audience.  

When I say I have no sense of smell, the response is often, “That must make you want not to eat.”  Would it were so!  Loss of smell should be a sure weight-loss technique, but it’s not.  Some anosmic people lose interest in food, but I, like many others, spend my time craving the tastes I remember but can no longer savor, and I eat, sometimes obsessively, searching for memories of comfort or delight.  Were it a sure cure for obesity, temporary or even permanent anosmia might be the most sought after remedy on the planet.  

After I had said to many people, “I can’t smell it,” when they proffered a fragrant flower or some delicious cheese, I felt deprived.  Friends expressed sadness at my loss and told me how much I was missing.  Although the desire seemed frivolous, I decided to try to regain this sense which I had only slowly become aware I had lost.  

I made an appointment to be tested at the Perlman Smell Clinic at the University of California, San Diego. The thought that I might actually smell and taste again buoyed me through the waiting, the preparatory testing, and the long drive to San Diego. Surely these experts could help me!  

As I sat in the crowded waiting room filling out pages and pages of the questionnaire, I learned that the sense of smell can go awry in more ways than simple loss.  Some subjects apprehend phantom smells which haunt them while others perceive unpleasant odors emanating from the most innocent of objects. 

When I saw the doctor, he gave me a test to identify what I could smell.  I sniffed a variety of odors, but I couldn’t tell what they were even when I saw a list of the choices.  The pungency of cinnamon was my only success, but even that was more guess than certainty.  I couldn’t even smell chocolate!  The doctor tested my degree of loss by having me sniff a series of plastic bottles of butyl alcohol in gradually increasing concentration.  I scored three of a possible ten.   

No question--I was anosmic, and the prescribed treatment--a steroid and an antibiotic--did nothing to change my condition.  The source of the anosmia, whether severe sinus infections or sinus surgery that removed epithelial cells containing olfactory nerve receptors, was something no one could say for sure; but whatever the cause, it didn’t really matter.  My sense of smell was gone for good.    

After all, I said to the doctor, anosmia isn’t a life threatening or dangerous condition,  but when he responded by asking if I used gas to cook with, I reflected that he had a point.  Anosmics who have no one to protect them from tainted food are often victims of food poisoning.  The doctor told me that women sometimes cry when they report that they can no longer taste their own cooking.  Anosmia reduces the pleasure of physical contact with loved ones because that special odor unique to each individual is lost.  I remembered the smells of my husband and of my son, first the powdery sweetness of babyhood, later the pungency of the little boy.   

I hadn’t really hoped for recovery, or I thought I hadn’t; but when the last possibility was gone, I was sad.  I can see, I can hear, I can touch, but smell and taste are only memories.  The world has narrowed for me.  Some of its delight has gone: the fragrance of a flower, the unexpected complexity of an exotic food--and I mourn for what I’ve lost.    

Author's Biography

I grew up in New York City, and after earning a B.A. in English Literature from Queens College, I moved to San Francisco.  

I spent two years with the Peace Corps in Africa, traveled extensively in Africa and Europe and returned to Los Angeles to earn a Master's Degree at the University of Southern California.  

I have taken a number of writing classes, attended several writing conferences and write novels and short stories as well as personal essays.  I now live in Los Angeles and travel frequently in Europe and Asia. 

E-mail Carole at casojka@adelphia.net

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