For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they couldn’t escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who couldn’t defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
― Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Yesterday I wrote about the fact that the touch sense has become forbidden, at least as far as the contact with our people is concerned.
We cannot shake a hand, hug each other, exchange a sign of peace.
If we can survive without touching (at least for a little while), we cannot live without breathing
The Covid-19 is a virus that causes pneumonia.
The most of deaths is caused by breathing difficulties.
The main reason of the emergency is due to the loss of sleeps in intensive care and to the great demand for ventilators for assisted breathing. So, if you don’t breath, you die.
Therefore, now we must try to protect our breath by wearing a filter mask that should have the purpose of preventing the very small viruses from coming into our mouth and our nose.
If the mask can filter viruses, obviously, as a consequence, it can filter molecules of herbs and scents which are bigger than viruses.
This virus wants us to take perfume away.
According to the quote I have started this article with, who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.
The Coronavirus is ruling scent and our hearts too, isn’t it? In a certain way, the answer is : yes, it’s obvious.
This can be shown by the general emotional mood pervading not only Italians but also the other inhabitants of our planet called Earth.
The feeling of disorientation is higher in our cities, which are not crowded early in the evening, than on the mountains where people are less upset and emptyness is not considered as something to fill up with all means and all noises. Loneliness is not an unwelcome company.
For these reasons you can perceive that scent is lacking more in our cities than on the mountains or in the countryside. This happened even before the Coronavirus.
If I have suggested hugging a tree, to pet a flower, in order to overcome the lack of contact, now I suggest smelling the flower or the grass in order not to forget the power of scent.
Some perfumes are forgotten and far away from us. therfore we must elaborate on those that we can still smell.
A cake just taken out of the oven. Have you never made a cake? It’s the right time to try. A glass of wine. Besides warming you up, it has a marvellous perfume.
When the first “Stay Home” decree was announced, some journalists wonder why the perfumeries could remain open.
Maybe our rulers know that we need to sniff?
Obviously the reasons will be very different, and certainly industrial perfumes can do little in emotional territory.
But it is now known that perfumes are the best vehicles for memories. It is enough to smell a perfume, even after many years, that memory is immediately projected to that place, that time, that person.
Then perhaps we must avoid that the only smells of this bad period are those of disinfectant, latex.
Perhaps it is better to have a pleasant, new scent associated with a beautiful moment in this series of bad memories that we are accumulating.
Today I went shopping, I found flowers that I had never bought. I put them in a vase, I smelled them.
One day, passing in front of a florist I will say
“I remember this perfume, it was my happy refuge inside my house, where I was forced to have a look. I smelled them every time I entered the living room, and in the evening, with the TV turned off and the phone too, I listened to songs that made them travel ”.
Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally.
― Perfume: The Story of a Murderer