I Smell Weird

Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and synaesthesist

I hallucinated smells from my mid-teens to my early twenties. To tell the truth, I never really thought about it–which is to say, I never understood it was unusual–until one Christmas Eve dinner when we had another family over. I can’t remember how it came up, but somebody made a reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography where he claims to have had olfactory hallucinations.

“Oh yeah. I have those all the time,” I said.

“Me too,” said my sister. Both my parents admitted to the same.

Needless to say the other family looked at us like we were completely crocked.

Which we may be.

What’s funny is that my smell hallucinations disappeared for twenty years. After the first year or two out of college, they just stopped.

Then, two weeks ago, they returned.

Body odor and marijuana smoke. (Friday night, while in a closed car waiting to pick up my wife.)

Cat pee. (In my office. I asked my co-workers, and they said it smelled like disinfectant to them. No way.)

Baking pastry. (In my son’s laundry. Again: no way. (Sorry kid.))

Hyacinths, where there are none.

Listen, you may not believe me. It’s Spring: there are hyacinths. It’s New York City. Pastry is being baked. Cats are peeing. Pot is being smoked. It’s reasonable to assume that I might be smelling these activities. (Or is that reasonable?)

And, you know, maybe I’m wrong.

But I think I know when a smell is there, really there; and when a smell is there, isolated in some neurological pocket–existing on the nerves, and not in the nose.

But to me, that doesn’t make it fake. In fact, it makes the scents more interesting. Like a gift, or an artifact. Since the smells are being created, by someone or something. An arbitrary grace note. A red flaw in the marble. Something brushing past me in another dimension, in an alternative Springtime; where things, I guess–possibly in a very good way–are stinkier.