.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-s

There are many things I truly love about running. It's a long list.

But the pleasant and sometimes unexpected smells, odors, aromas and fragrances that I inhale on my common route is one that's pretty high up on that list.

In our normal daily lives we live trapped either inside our cars, our homes, offices, or shopping malls. It's not too common that we are exposed to the natural ambient smells of the world without the intervention of walls and air conditioning systems which deaden our sense of smell.

When I run around the 5K loop in my neighborhood there is nothing that comes in between the world as it is and my olfactory bulb.

The warmer the air, the more smell particles find their way to my grateful nose.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-s

is one that's pretty high up on that list.

In our normal daily lives we live trapped either inside our cars, our homes, offices, or shopping malls. It's not too common that we are exposed to the natural ambient smells of the world without the intervention of walls and air conditioning systems which deaden our sense of smell.

When I run around the 5K loop in my neighborhood there is nothing that comes in between the world as it is and my olfactory bulb.

The warmer the air, the more smell particles find their way to my grateful nose.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-s

e exposed to the natural ambient smells of the world without the intervention of walls and air conditioning systems which deaden our sense of smell.

When I run around the 5K loop in my neighborhood there is nothing that comes in between the world as it is and my olfactory bulb.

The warmer the air, the more smell particles find their way to my grateful nose.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-s

in my neighborhood there is nothing that comes in between the world as it is and my olfactory bulb.

The warmer the air, the more smell particles find their way to my grateful nose.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-s

.

It's always an experience of comfortable recollection (“ohh, yes, fresh laundry!”) or a puzzling inquiry (“after shave? or burnt grass?”).

The game of olfactory hide-and-seek never ends.

Here are some of the odors and fragrances I encounter on a fairly regular basis on my running route:

Freshly laundered clothes, Tide, and clean steaming water.

A hot car engine that's shut off just minutes earlier, its manifolds still ticking as they cool off, the faint smell of gas and oil dropping on some invisible hot metal surface.

Soft asphalt, yielding to the authoritarian summer heat.

Onions and burgers on a grill, sizzling. Children's happy laughter in the background.

Freshly cut sweet grass, mixed with the exhaust gas of a noisy two-stroke engine.

The sharp and bitter whiff of pesticide, insecticide and fertilizer.

The unmist