Recently I got COVID for the first time. I had naively believed I was unable to contract the virus until one afternoon I stood at the kitchen counter with a raging headache staring at the two lines boldly presenting themself on a testing stick. The last time I had seen two lines on a stick was almost three years ago when I found out I was pregnant. In both of these “positive” realizations, the first emotion to surface was relief. Relief that my baby had found her home in my body – the sensing of her had finally landed in this realm. And the unexpected relief of getting COVID. I hadn’t realized how much I was holding – holding the unknown tension of will I get this virus that has consumed our world. For the first time in three years, I finally had an answer to that question and I felt relief throughout my COVID positive body.

Following the relief came fear. Fear of all the ways I will fail as a mother, fear of losing the soul that lives near my heart, fear that the turkey meat I ate for lunch will harbor a bacteria that will cause an infection that will lead to a miscarriage. Fear that COVID will win the fight against my body and take me away from my baby – temporarily or even permanently.

I can tell you that pregnancy, birth, motherhood, and COVID we’re filled with challenges worthy of fear but looking back at them nothing was quite as scary as what my mind had created. Fickle creatures we are. Creating realities each day in our minds far more horrendous than was is present in front of us.

Back to getting COVID. The virus in my body only brought about 24 hours of symptoms but days after, when the symptoms had subsided, I noticed that my morning tea tasted off. And the day after that, it tasted like nothing at all. I scrambled to find the strongest essential oil in the drawer and pulled out cedar and took a huge whiff but couldn’t detect any part of it. The first couple of days without taste or smell had me spinning. I realized how much I rely on my smell to guide me throughout the day. I am constantly smelling my daughter’s head, taking in her scent, it relaxes me and gives me more patience as a mother. I smell when the beans are done or that the morning has come.

I began to research the olfactory system and how it is linked to our emotions. It turns out that evolutionarily the oldest, first-developed sense is our smell. It allowed organisms to identify food, potential mating partners, dangers, and enemies. An article in the Harvard Gazette shares “that smell is the only fully developed sense a fetus has in the womb, and it’s the one that is the most developed in a child through the age of around 10…because “smell and emotion are stored as one memory…childhood tends to be the period in which you create “the basis for smells you will like and hate for the rest of your life.” (Walsh, 2020) Evolutionarily and developmentally smell has been the first yet it was the one sense for me that I took the most for granted. Subtle, always there, always sensing. Now, weeks later, my scent is at about 20% of what it used to be. Slowly it’s coming back. In order to sense a situation I have to slow down enough and consciously identify the different pieces of information:

I smell Jasmine.

“Mmm that is jasmine, it reminds me of a blooming love. Of walking through the gate to the garden. Of abundance, care, and presence”

I smell Rose.

“That is rose, almost citrusy, my mom used to have roses outside of her office. I wasn’t supposed to pick them. I once spilled rose oil in my car, the same car I smoked tobacco in. Musky tobacco and rose.”

I smell my daughter.

“That is my daughter, she is healthy. It is the same smell she had when I first met her outside of my body. She smells wise, of earth and dirt. Older than me. My body is filled with love, care, and presence.”

At times, in the impatience of this lasting ailment, I try and overload my senses. I crave the candy, the soda, the obvious artificial treat so that I can taste again what has been missing. Only to find that it tastes of chemicals, void of the pleasure of the subtle. It leaves me feeling gross, like after too much time scrolling on social media or a bad tv show.

I guess what I’m here for is a result of the two positive sticks I’ve received. Pregnancy and COVID have taught me how to slow down, the less stimulation the more receptive we are to the subtle. The more space we have in our bodies to receive the subtle gifts the more free our minds become. I am a sensitive creature, drawn to the textures of the blades of grass, how they sprout through the ground in the spring, the silkiness of the petals, and the subtle aroma of my child’s head.