The Nose Knows
Essay
Carlton Gardens is all closed up today, in preparation for the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.
We walk in the extensive grounds around the hoary museum and Exhibition Building which was built in 1880. The trees are ancient. They line both sides of the broad walkway. Down here, the traffic is only a distant presence. It is difficult to believe that just one road away is a busy, arterial road.
Leaves drift down gently from trees to join their companions, already preparing for the next stage of their lives. ‘Winter is coming’, and it was their time to go and merge with the soil that gave them their sustenance.
I wander over the grass to touch living wood, the trees. They meet overhead in a verdant clasp, and walking beneath them is like walking beneath the roof of a green cathedral. The tree trunks are scarred and pitted, with channels seeming to run down them. They whisper their secrets to me. I listen, with awe and humility, and gratitude that inundates my heart.
The man I live with looks back to see me staring respectfully at the tree: and he hurries away, wanting to keep his distance. He is all but preparing to tell anyone who looks askance at me, that he has no idea who that crazy woman is, and that he has never seen me before.
He walks ahead, I linger. I pat the tree, touch the leaves as I pass, and then walk quickly. I can walk very fast when I want to.
“Lavender,” I remark, and he jumps two feet into the air. The last time he looked I was still talking to the trees. I look at him kindly, till he gets his breath back. “I can smell lavender,” I tell him. He nods shortly. He dislikes surprises. I can’t imagine why. I THRIVE on them.
We walk on.
“Sage, rosemary and thyme,” I say. He pretends selective deafness and hurries on.
I have a nose that knows.
Back in College, I could enter a classroom, and instantly realise a whole lot of things about the students in class. When I unlock the door to my house, with my keys, I know who’s in, and who’s just left, by the odours they exude. And sometimes, even what people I pass on the street have eaten the previous night…
Burning food, boiling milk, rice being cooked, the spices in an Indian dish, a spot where curry leaves grow, a spot where two people have just frolicked in, and left behind evidence…
The man has a healthy respect for my nose. He remembers how I knew when a switch board, at home had a short circuit, and I could smell the burning… inside the wall. He would rather forget it, though. At times, he has the uneasy suspicion that I am not quite ‘all there.’
I think, if he actually knew some of the things that go on in my head, we might not even be living in the same house!
Back on the tram going home, we pass by the State Library of Melbourne. It is early, and the great doors are shut fast. But there are people sitting on the grass, on the benches, on the steps of the marvellous structure, reading, staring, thinking their own thoughts. I remember gazing out of the window at the clouds, my heart overflowing again, with gratitude, for the chance and the circumstances that ferried me to this place, at this time.
This moment in time, isn’t that the only thing we can be sure about, certain of, rely on?
©️ 2022 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
This is the second instalment of the response to this prompt by I. Trudie Palmer. Today, it is my nose, that stars in the ‘Go Easy Project.’
