Lesson Two - SMELL - Being a bloodhound

Second, is smell. This sense you can record using pictures, as in the first lesson, or document with pen and paper or a voice recorder (again you can use your cellphone/Evernote). Throughout the week, month, year, the rest of your life, pay attention to the smells around you. Record your thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. to the best of your ability.

When you're at the grocery store, smell the gourmet cheeses, the fruit and vegetables, the varieties of coffee (one of my FAV smells!) or the seafood (which incidentally if you can smell fish, it isn't fresh!). Record your thoughts, feelings, memories, everything!

Smells are everywhere. Smells you like and make you feel good and smells you don't like. Go to a nursery, and look for the garden herbs. Rub the leaves, smell each herb, what do you feel? What does it make you think of? Smell the different flowers, how do they differ?

In the office, in the city, in your garden, in your kitchen, every place you are has a smell. What does the air smell like where you are right now? When you make food, or are at restaurant, try to take in every smell. The strong ones - onions, garlic, or pepper, and familiar ones - different herbs and spices, breads, or sauces. Attempt to break them down, see if you can figure out the ingredients just by what you smell.

Out in the world, the smells of the damp earth, freshly cut grass, or rain in the air. Roadkill, carrion, garbage, compost. Don't just record the good, record the offensive. Record the memories of pb&j in primary school, or playing in the garden as a kid. Record how smells affect your mood, how they impact your life, imagine NOT being able to smell. If you haven't done the smell experiment as a kid, then collect several items - onion, roses, cedar, vanilla, an old leather jacket. Strong smells, faint smells, several items. Put on a blindfold and 'see', smell, how does your vision affect what you smell?

Really SMELL things that you are around every day. When you walk into your house, what do you smell? What does your family smell like? (If you don't normally sniff them, they will think you've lost your mind! Good thing they love you!) What do your pets smell like? Your bedroom? Your living room? Your bathroom?

Record EVERYTHING.


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