Marion has a nose for Margaret.
S LENDER, ZOFTIG, TALL or otherwise, women exhibit marvelous differences while all having one characteristic in common: a great nose. In short, women smell things out like no man can. Including, science tells us, and most expertly of all, their sisters.
Months before he got really sick, I told my husband that he smelled different. Previously of the geranium-earthy-aroma group, he was suddenly a metallic-industrial-chemical type. He told me I was crazy. Ninety days later he collapsed on the guestroom floor with a blocked kidney. Now he hands me his food in my role as marital test-smeller, and every once in a while lets me get a really good whiff of him just for good measure. I’m happy to report that he’s all geranium again, my man.
Sound familiar?
Sure it does, because women have always believed that we are the nose of the world. But now, it’s proven. And what The Sister Project loves about the study in which our olfactory super-eminence is finally established, is the determination of just what it is that we smell best: our own sisters.
While studies about the secrets lurking in our smells are not new, a recent one conducted by Dr. Johan Lundstorm, a neuro-psychologist at the Monell Chemical Sense Center in Philadelphia, reveals that merely with a sniff, women can decipher between friends and strangers to locate their sisters.
Has this got a whiff of truth for you? Do tell.
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Where can I find the list of 5 things brought to a dying friend home?
Barb
Welcome, Barbara. The list you refer to, from a visitor named Joely, is in the comments on the post called The List That Helps With Loss. Thank link will take you there, then scroll down till you come to her list.
I’m not sure how accurate I am with smelling, but boy oh boy my 10 year old daughter is a pro.
Welcome, Wendy. Do tell. What kinds of things can your 10-year-old daughter sniff out that others cannot?
When I was 3 weeks old I was adopted by my parents.
Three years ago (after 30 years of blank in the genetics department) my birthmother and biological sister found me.
I have never been able to really relate to anyone in my family, and I have always felt like I was the odd one. As we all learned about each other, the whole question of nature or nurture kept (and keeps, to this day) coming up…
Almost a year later, my bio-sis got on a plane and came to visit me.
We do not look alike, for the most part. She is my half sister. She was stunned by how much I look like our mother and how my mannerisms remind me of her grandma, excuse me, OUR grandma. It is odd hearing how I have quirks and gestures and things like people I have never met in my life…The very things that made me feel out of place growing up, were not, perhaps, bad, but rather actually in the wrong place. Which is something I had never considered…
Anyway, of all the little things we share, (including a strange tingling and rash around our mouths if we eat ranch dressing, although we are not allergic to any of the individual ingredients) we both smell things. I was in a consultation with a developmental pediatrician, recently. We were discussing my son, Alex, who has a form of PDD (most likely Asperger’s). She asked if he smells things that one would ordinarily not require sniffing or smelling. I had to laugh. I said, “Yes, but of all his quirks, I think that one is most likely genetic”…. My sister, my son, and I all smell everything. Regular objects. Sometimes to comedic effect. We were surprised that “smelling” was the thing we had in common. Perhaps it’s some ingrained survival thing, who knows…I went blind from cataracts during college (I have lens implants now), and my sense of smell was, at times, more helpful than my hearing…But my sister and my son have all of their senses intact, as now do I. Still, we smell books, knick knacks, fabrics… Not for any reason, not because we are curious…It’s this automatic thing. It’s as natural as lifting one’s feet when walking. Or inhaling and exhaling (mere millimeters from an object!)…
So I think there is something to the sister sense of smell…But I could probably spot one of my tribe (and I have only met 2 people from my biological family, in person) because they would be smelling something, and not just by sense of smell….
Welcome, Bek. Marion will be back soon (hope, hope, hope) from power-outage disasters in her area and much of the Northeast. Meantime, I am the welcome-wagon, and also just wanted to say how touched I am by your story.
Like Marion, I, too, have a wildly sensitive sense of smell…and scents are either of great comfort or great concern to me. It’s not something people always “get”…but I do (and I know my sister does, too)…and you and your sister and son. Fascinating, really. And yes, sometimes comedic. Brings new meaning to the expression, “Something about this just doesn’t smell right.”
Hi, Bek: This is a remarkable tale. The idea that your sense of smell was, at times, more helpful than your hearing, that you smell books and that you share this with your sister is all wondrous, isn’t it? But that it’s automatic for you three is what enchants me. As Margaret said, she and I share this, as well. Please visit often to share what else we sisters do automatically. I write about the science of siblings here on the site on a regular basis.