We Can’t Go Out There
Friends, let me share a little story with you.
When I was maybe ten years old, my mom fried up some fish in the kitchen. I had never been a big fan, but on that evening, I found the odor of frying fish to be particularly disgusting. So I went upstairs to my bedroom and stuffed towels under the door in an effort to prevent further penetration of the fish smell into my room. I opened both windows as far as I could and propped a box fan in one of them to draw outside air in. In this way, I tried to create a fresh air haven. My plan was to stay there until the smell subsided, even if it took all evening. Except there was a problem: my plan did not seem to be working, and in fact, the smell only seemed to get stronger. After awhile, the smell had grown so strong, I found myself wretching and struggling to not vomit. In a bid for survival, I decided the only thing I could do was to leave and go far, far away — maybe to 7-Eleven — and come back only when the house was again habitable. In commando fashion, I crouched low and ran downstairs with a cloth covering my mouth and nose.
My mom, a nice person, informed me that she had finished cooking the fish some time ago and that she’d been running the hood fan for the duration, with all windows open, in hopes that I wouldn’t be too bothered by the smell. I took the cloth off my nose and confirmed that it in fact did not smell like fish at all in the rest of the house. So why had the intensity of the odor seemed to escalate to such an extreme in my bedroom during the time I’d holed myself up?
It was my mother who then realized that the hood fan over the stove vented directly below my bedroom window, and I had created not a haven of fresh air, but a prison of frying fish smell in that small room. “Ha ha ha ha,” they all laughed. And many months later, I laughed with them retrospectively. As you do.
And here is other little anecdote to tickle your fancy: At the tender age of fifteen, I was meeting a friend at her home to go out and do I-don’t-know-what. Her parents were always up to something with seafood. This visit, however, was particularly memorable in that her mother was drying calamari somewhere inside the house. It was only through the sheer force of willpower that I kept the contents of my stomach from emerging onto the floor for the ten minutes I was there, waiting for my friend to get ready. I remember using all of my mental and physical energy to keep from puking —gritting my teeth, clenching my fists, blinking back tears. I just could not handle the smell of the sea evaporating out of that octopus that night. When we finally left, the odor had some kind of tenacious hold on my hair, and I had to open the car window and stick my head out, because I couldn’t stop gagging from the smell.
And may I present to you yet another story for your reading pleasure? On my first visit to Seattle, when I was 22 years old, I wanted to see Pike Place Market, since cute guys throwing large fish around is universally appealing, even to fish haters like me. As I meandered my way through the little shops toward the area where the day’s catch is displayed and sold, I suddenly happened upon a wall of fish odor. I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did, and I immediately gagged, almost puked, and had no choice but to turn around and run away. I didn’t get to see cute guys throwing fish that day. I felt sad, yet somewhat amused. Can one be sad and amused at the same time? Why yes, I assure you, one certainly can.
Wait, wait! I have another: When I was thirty, and just a handful of months into courting my husband, I was invited to the wedding celebration of his technically former but still beloved stepmother and her new husband. The centerpiece of the celebratory brunch was a beautiful Alaskan salmon. Unaware of this detail upon our arrival that morning, I walked into the kitchen, smelled the salmon, and had to immediately do a 180 back out the door so as to hide my wretching. After I pulled myself together, I mentally prepared myself for the odor and managed to successfully mask my discomfort over the smell like a real grown adult. I felt proud. Like I had finally grown up.
“There, there, Kara, get it all out. Get it all out. It’s okay, you’re safe here,” you may be saying to me, offering your support and comfort to me after all I’ve been through. But listen, friends! It is not necessary! For I have experienced the healing power of parenthood.
Fast forward to last week. We took a little jaunt to the extreme northern tip of Denmark, to a little seaside village called Skagen (pronounced something like Skane, fyi. Don’t be thinking “SKA-GEN” when you read this, as you will be pronouncing it wrong in your head. Unless you are reading this aloud, then you will be pronouncing it wrong OUT LOUD.) Anyhow, Skagen (skane) was lovely, idyllic with its brick houses and buildings painted almost universally yellow and terracotta roof shingles, abundant walking streets, outdoor cafe seating, and bustling port area. We were as far north as I’d ever been on this planet, and the sun’s angle was oblique in a way that made everything feel a bit magical and almost sparkly. So, when we first arrived in Skagen after a trying three hour car ride in which Finn, our two year old son, had been horribly carsick early on, vomiting twice and shrieking for a good hour of the drive, we pulled up to our vacation rental, got out of the car, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
As soon as we opened the car door, Finn immediately started crying and struggling with the invisible, saying “Stinky! Stinky!”, followed by gagging, and then vomiting. Because alas, dear readers, the air was warm and thick with the odor of dead, rotten sea animals. I was actively managing my own urge to puke — with much success, if you must know. At first it was unclear as to whether Finn was merely sick in a general car-sicky way, since he had already lost it twice in the car, or if he was now vomiting from the putridness of the smell. Amos (my husband, for those of you who may be strangers) took quick action and scooped him up, like a firefighter rescuing a cat from a burning building, and shuttled him into the apartment. It was a heroic scene. Finn puked once more before reaching safety.
Once inside, we noted that the dead, rotten fish smell was still present, although of course much milder and not nearly as strong as it had been outdoors in the parking area. It was manageable, we told ourselves, and we were confident that we’d acclimate in no time, and would soon be walking the streets of Skagen without sniffing twice. Still, the indoor air was bothersome, and we’d laugh when we’d look out the window and see brave passersby walking the streets of the town, hunched over and covering their mouths and noses with hankies. So maybe our plan to acclimate wasn’t entirely realistic, if everyone else in Skagen seemed to be having difficulties as well.
Amos lit some candles in the living room and announced that he was going to make a trip to a shop called “Namaste,” which we’d passed on the way into town, and where surely they would be selling incense. Because, the reasoning went, what else would a shop named “Namaste” possibly be selling? The incense would mask the odor, and we’d all relax like a bunch of hippies until we figured out what to do next. Finn announced that he would like to go along. Amos had made him feel so safe with his heroic shuttling from the car to the apartment through the fish smell, and Finn wasn’t ready to leave his side just yet. Despite our counsel otherwise, Finn insisted on going to Namaste. So, not being big on avoidance, we said okay.
Amos put Finn’s shoes and jacket on and carried him out the door: my two brave men. Three seconds later they came back in. Apparently, Finn had puked before they’d even left the doorstep: one whiff, and gag, gag, barf— no emotion, really, just vomit on the jacket. Finn seemed happy enough to be back inside, and no longer wanted to go to Namaste.
After a minute, Finn said, “We can’t go out there.” And then Lander, our four-and-a-half-year-old, asked, pleadingly, “When will it end??”
I was determined to not let the fish smell rule our lives and make us prisoners in our own vacation rental, as I’d allowed myself to be held prisoner by fish smell too many times in my childhood. But how far would we push Finn, who’d already puked three times from it? If we could just get him to the car and drive away fast, maybe we’d manage to escape to a part of Skagen that didn’t smell like a rotting whale carcass.
Amos returned with some spray freshener for the apartment that he’d found at the grocery store (because, whaaaaaaaat, Namaste did not have incense!!??) Then we steeled ourselves and went for a drive to the coast. But we were pleased to find that the breeze there did not contain rotten fish smell. We frolicked on the beach and watched people pet a sea lion, perhaps against better judgment, and we even took a little sand bus out to the very tip of the Danish coast where the Baltic Sea meets the North Sea and the waves crash together like warring sumo wrestlers.
With the exception of a gale that blew into town the first night, bringing the smell with it at about 2:00 in the morning, only to be gone by sunrise, we didn’t encounter the fish smell again… until the last day. We were driving home from an outing to see the ships at the docks and found ourselves in an unfamiliar part of town. We wound our way through a cute little neighborhood, lost, but not super lost, because how lost can you get in a town of 8000? And then suddenly, as if jumping at us from out of the bushes, the smell was in our car. Me: “Oh shit, it’s the smell! Roll up the windows!” Lander: “Help!! No! No! No!!!” Finn, who was already screaming and angry about being in his carseat, stopped crying for a moment. He gagged twice and vomited all over himself. It was so sad. Yet strangely affirming.
It was affirming because I’d spent my entire life thinking that my inability to stomach fish smell was a personal shortcoming; if I’d just grow up a little and not be such a baby, I’d be able to handle it, and maybe I’d even be able to enjoy seafood someday. And now, here I had evidence, in the form of my own progeny — my son who most physically resembles me —that this quirk is merely part of my fabric. It’s just who I am. And apparently, he’s like that too.
Thanks, Finn.
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