For today’s substack, let’s explore a subset of items listed on the metaphorical and useless resumé I keep in my head and add to from time to time. What is this substack subset? A sublist of my heightened senses:
1. Smell. I have a really strong sense of smell. It’s “sensitive,” you might say. I detect things no one else does. I once sniffed out an electrical issue with one of our cords plugged into the wall. It completely fried the device it was attached to. It took me a bit but I found it, sniffing about like a bloodhound. And our poor kittycat was out of an automatic laser. “Lasy laser” we called it*, for now we have to do laser play by hand like pilgrims.
*no one has called it this.
Another example: Sean will use me to determine whether a food item is past its freshness. He doesn’t believe in expiration dates but rather, opts to trust his nose. Or mine, as the case may be.
Yet another example: I came home late one night when Julian was wee. Immediately upon arrival I sniffed the air and said,
“Something is off.”
Sean, who had been home, smelled nothing. I followed the scent that eventually brought me to hovering in the dark over Julian’s crib where, upon turning on the lights, we learned he’d violently puked himself to blissful sleep.
It has come to my attention that a poem exists called Smell! by a favorite, William Carlos Williams. It’s hilarious and captures a lot of my feelings and I love that it exists. I also love it because a friend and I co-wrote a poem called The Smell when we were in Jr. High. You can probably guess what it was about. But here is WCW, once again coming through for me, and seasonably so:
Smell!
William Carlos Williams
Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?
Moving on.
2. Hearing. I can also hear faint or distant sounds, like lost kittens or something we are hunting (those things should probably not be said in the same sentence). It’s come in handy many times. For instance:
We once lived in a small, somewhat ramshackle cottage and at one point I heard the faintest drip sounds coming from somewhere. Cottage in the woods + invisible drip sound = the setting of a great ok horror story. Sean could not hear it. But I could, and I generally trust myself, so I persisted. It was a little like a telltale heart but with less incrimination, more mild perplexity (with maybe just a bit of insanity). I carefully, stealthily hunted the sound and, ear pressed like a ranger from the North, discovered that it originated from inside the wall (and that its pace had quickened). I reported the discreet drip to the authorities and it turned out to be a leak that had to be repaired, not evidence of a grisly and buried murder (which, now that I think about it, I guess would have been my crime, if i was the one who was hearing it according to the tale. To be clear: I didn’t murder anyone …is exactly what a murderer would say).
Continuing, Sean weirdly can’t tell if the heat/furnace is on when I’m over here being deafened by it. He’ll ask me if it’s on and I’ll reply,
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?—the furnace is SO loud.”
But perhaps the best/most heroic example is how, at least twice a week, I’ll hear the stove sound when Sean’s been cooking. Meaning, the cooking’s over, he’s removed the pan, yet the burner is still ablaze, happily and freely cooking nothing but the open air. This might be an advantage to having an induction stove vs. gas. Or maybe he’d more readily notice an actual open flame? It’s just a very subtle and occasional click noise. Sean often thanks me for keeping the house from burning down. I tell him it is my pleasure. Dinnertime’s a bit of a roulette game we’re not sure we want to play. We have discussed constructing some kind of string of bells to wrap around the stove area as a kind of booby trap when he’s cooking, to act as a reminder «*RING* Did you turn the stove off?» but we’re not sure how feasible this is. Regardless, we make a good team. He cooks and I regularly save our lives.
It’s not all fun and heroics though. This is a lot of sensory input to tolerate and filter throughout the course of a day. The ticking of the clock, the gentle gurgle of the cat water fountain, the chirping birds, construction down the street, the washing machine in the basement, distant voices, near voices speaking directly to me— all of which compete for my attention (clock never wins, birds almost always do), of varying degrees of desirability. Background and foreground are interchangeable and I must manually make the switch all day long. Oh no, you don’t—get back there. Fortunately, I guess, my thoughts out-scream them all, so I win, or something.
I can get fatigued, so sometimes I’ll have Alexa turn on brown noise to block out the external noise which, in turn, strangely quiets the brain noise. Brown noise for brain noise. This is my favorite color of noise. And then Sean will come in and inquire-yell about the nearby jet turbine or ask when the countdown begins for the Saturn 5 rocket.
In conclusion and summary— for you Twilight fans, I basically picture myself as Bella Swan that first moment she opens her eyes as a vampire (spoiler) and immediately detects the dust particles in the air, drips of condensation on the vase, individual fibers on a book page, trash zoomed in on the carpet (esp that last one. ugh). This is pretty much how I wake up every day.
post script: This post is dedicated to my friend Valerie Best, aka ValPal, who is currently undergoing a project on Medium comparing Twilight & Twilight Reimagined (genders switched). She is skilled and a hoot, just two of the things I love and admire about her. Go take a gander.