Brave Nose

“Smell goes directly to your emotions, you are crying, you don’t know why,” Mr. Collado expounded as the others leaned in. “Smelling has a power that none of the other senses have, and I must tell you now, it is molecular, it goes to the essence of the essence.”

Mr. Collado pointed to the man beside him. A hot breeze from the cliffs moved millions of molecules between them suddenly.

“When I smell him, in reality I am entering into a level of intimacy more intense than if we slept in bed together,” he said.

****

He grabbed a bunch of dry leaves and crushed them between his palms.

“I formulate with my hands and what I have here is almost a perfume,” he said as he extended the leaves for a whiff.

His approach is the exact opposite of what most perfumers do, he said. They isolate scents, making something artificial. He combines them, embracing the strange smells of it all.

“Why I do this is because there is nothing more complex than nature,” he said. “We should be complex, but we have a problem with accepting our complexity and contradiction in ourselves.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/world/europe/spain-catalonia-cap-de-creus.html