The Smell of the Sun

Have you ever smelled the sun?  I asked this question of HR, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind.  How do you smell the sun?  I guess specifically what I meant was getting a waft of someone right after they come inside from being in the sun.  When they have that warm, fresh, almost earthy smell emanating off of their skin, and it makes them seem so alive.  They smell alive with energy, with light, with potential.  That is how I imagine the sun smelling like…energy, light, potential…life.

Kate Kershner wrote about this on the website “How Stuff Works,” and she said that what we’re really doing is associating a smell with an object.  So, whenever we smell that smell, our mind is telling us that that is that object.  The problem with this is that it becomes subjective and different from one person to the next.  Whereas I associate the smell of the sun to warm, fresh, earthy smells; someone else might think of fresh laundry, or the beach, or rain even.

She goes on to say that we can’t possible know if the sun has a smell, because we can’t get close enough to sniff it.  So, what we’re really smelling is the air.  And according to one research study, air warmed by the sun actually smells differently than cooler air.  This is because molecules that carry scents are moving faster and more freely in warmer air, so we perceive more of them.  So, I guess I’m not so crazy after all.  I am smelling the warmed air on someone’s skin being carried in their wake as they come in from the sun.