Yute

It had been several minutes since the tug pushed us away from gate 3C and left us idling in the middle of the tarmac at Hamad International. From 6A’s porthole, the sea swayed gently at the edge of the runway, the Gulf sun making the ridges on the water and in the concrete slabs shimmer. I kept waiting for the pilots to start for the runway, but we just sat there. And then I noticed it: everything smelled different.

Noise cancellation had swallowed the child’s cries in the back, softened its mother’s entreaties. The ambient playlist I’d queued for the brief airborne stretch to Dubai without signal punctuated the dense quiet. The world collaped onto a solipsistic stage. Everything smelled different.

I reached back.

Stone Harbor. The Ocean Drive toll bridge. Windows down in the blå Saab 900, the smell of seagrass bending in the ocean breeze. Honey mustard and thinly sliced baked ham on rye. I can’t name the cheese, but it was the right cheese. Wafts of syrup coming off the boardwalk planks, the oil and confectioner’s sugar rising from funnel cakes.

A decade later, New York. A summer on 68th between Madison and Park. A third-floor walk-up with a vestibule that smelled of mild must and black-and-white tiles mopped early that morning. Wood, dust, and age went up the stairs. In the apartment, the sweetness of walnut and mahogany in the armoire standing solemnly on restored wooden floors that glowed in the afternoon sun. Brass and cast-iron fixtures dulled by a soft tacky dust. Down the avenue, Thomas Pink was pioneering scent as signature pumped through its ventilation. An alluring concoction of bergamot, white rose, musk and sandalwood – the scent clung to the crisp sea-island cotton and silk-knotted cufflinks stacked throughout the store. Around the corner on Lexington, the warmth of Cosi flatbreads – sundried tomato, eastern-spiced chicken – contributed the scent of yeast and toasted grain to the subway air hissing through the grates with the rhythmic rumble of the 4, 5 and 6.

Another summer, another life. The fragrant crunch of cilantro and garlic in each bite of lubina by the sea at Magó Beach, Portals Vells. The inland Mallorcan air lifting scenes from the VW Golf’s dry leather, mixing with sun and petrol at the Repsol as the liters clicked away under the Mediterranean pines.

Back then, scents hit the nose with higher fidelity. The air cut more clearly, carried sharper notes. Over time, the edges have frayed and commingled – salt into starch, wood into dust, sweat into perfume – like pigments left too long in the sun they’ve run and dulled. The world has certainly changed. Blå gave way to Indigoblau, Cosi bowed out to Joe & the Juice. Et tu Brute? Are you not of this world? The world may smell different now, yet it might still strike a younger nose with the same sharp punch that once created a bouquet of bright high contrast vignettes for you.

The perfumers call it nose fatigue. The dulling of awareness through too much proximity. But what about over time? The dimension that grows in relevance to its travelers. The olfactory bulb may be burning out.

Is anyone injecting stem cells into the nasal epithelium? I wonder if there’s a way back to smelling the world as if it were new. How much further would that go toward restoring youth over the predominant chasing of its reflection?

My wife mouthed something to me about the bag I hadn’t stowed for takeoff and it smelled like everything smells now. A murmur.