Death Smells Sweet
Title: Death Smells Sweet
Creator: Paige Gulley
Category: Death
Creator Commentary:
This piece is a reflection on death, focusing on the intimacy created by experiencing death as a smell. The sense of smell is often intimately connected with memories – for example, smelling baking cookies, wood smoke, or pine makes me think of Christmas as a child. But as this piece explores, smells can also be associated with much more painful memories, like the memory of the death of someone you care about. This piece examines the way that experiencing death primarily through the sense of smell makes one intimately aware of death, because the smell is literally being breathed in and becoming a part of you through the process of respiration. It also discusses the ways that a smell can tell you more than a sight or a sound, as well as stick with you much longer than other sensory experiences. It argues that the experience of death as a smell forces you to confront death not only in the world around you, but also inside your own body.
Submission:
Creator Bio:
Paige Gulley is currently in her final year as an undergraduate at Chapman University. Her love of reading led her to her current job at a public library, but it is her love of languages and cultures that motivate her academic studies. Paige will be pursuing a Master’s in War and Society at Chapman University next year, and then hopes to continue her studies in the field of postcolonial studies. No matter where her life takes her, she intends to live a life of ubuntu, always recognizing the humanity in others and acting accordingly.