the world of smell

This morning there were a ton of people on the platform at my subway station, so I could tell that there hadn't been a train in a while. And when that happens, it's usually because the R train isn't running (because not having the stupid old M train isn't going to pile people up like this, since nobody other than me really rides it -- although you're about to find out that's not true... but I digress).

And as a bit of (type A) back story, I like to ride the M train in the front, so I can get out near the front exit at Chambers Street, or ride the R train in the back, so I can get out near the back exit at Union Square. And since there were so many people on the platform, I was counting on an M train, and moved to the front.

Of course, the R train pulled in. (but you saw that coming)

So I take that to Pacific Street, thinking to change to an N train (which I also ride in the back of), and I'm hightailing it to the back of the platform, when the next train pulls in, and it's (you guessed it) the M train. So I'm somewhere in the middle, an MT(type)A no-man's-land, if you will. But I'm not SO terribly anal that I run to the back of the train. I just get on.

And for my levelheadedness and patience, I am blessed with a reward. I know someone on this car! It's my college-and-slightly-post-college boyfriend, David (whose beautiful writing can be found in the Spring 2006 issue of Glimmer Train Stories here -- although he may be on the web in other places I'm not aware of. Let's just say we're not regular commuting buddies. I mean, he rides in the middle of the train, for crying out loud!)

ANYWAY, we chat about his wife and son, about his family and mine, about his new book and my current acting career, and it's really nice to reconnect with someone who played such a big role in my early years in New York. And right before he got off the train (and this is where I'm finally reaching my point) he leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheeck, and he smelled exactly the same way he did 9 years ago. It was as if, by breathing in that tiny whiff of David-smell, I was transported back to Yale, back to the time we spent together, but only for that split second, and then I was back on the train, back in New York, I was 29 again.

I love that. I love the immediacy of smell. How, when you've been gone long enough, you can walk through your front door and smell your own home smell again. (although in my apartment, that's not the case. It just smells funny all the time, but I think that's about to get better since Mr. Smellypants downstairs moved out) I love how certain smells are associated with time periods -- for me, Tatiana perfume is eighth grade, the body shop's white musk room oil is junior year of college and the burning-diaper smell of Grand Central is my childhood (no, I wasn't a homeless child living in a train station. I just remember coming in to see shows or have dinner with my folks and how familiar the rank smell of Grand Central can get). My Honda used to have a pink stick-up in it, and I have no idea what it was supposed to smell like, but it brings back all the memories of my car.

Technically, touch is the most immediate sense, because if something touches you it has to be close to you. But I think that smell is mind-immediate. Because nothing brings back memories as quickly and as fully for me as an old familiar smell.

[SIDEBAR: There's a great book about the senses called A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman that devotes a whole section to smell, and the various ways humans have used smell over the centurires. It's fascinating to me. Anyway, I'm not actually reading it now, but I'll pretend that I am, so you can see what it looks like below]