Mouldy smell
I was overcome with a strong smell of mould earlier this week. On about the third day, I pulled the bed out, thinking there must be something there. It was far less-dustier than it usually was, but I still filled a bucket with hot detergent-infused water and wiped everything down. Surprisingly, Stephen couldn’t smell it. I decided that the dampness must have been creeping in through the wall behind the chest of drawers as some years back the electrical switch had turned black, which I had assumed had happened because of dampness. The hole that was in the corner has since been fixed. I did worry that water had somehow got itself under the concrete foundation of the house as another possible source of the smell.
Then a post appeared on Facebook. Is any one else bothered by that mouldy smell? Apparently yes, judging by the feedback that appeared. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this smell might be coming from anywhere other than the house. I soon realised why I smelt it so strongly. Next to our bed is a small window and each morning, the first thing I do is open this. With a predominantly westerly wind of late, the smell would have been blowing directly into the room, with me thinking it was coming from the bed. As Stephen was on the other side, he hadn’t noticed it. No one seemed to know the cause of this smell but it was a relief to realise it wasn’t anything to do with the house.
But this whole episode was an interesting lesson in how our brains work. I had immediately identified possible causes of this mould and tried to fix them, with more surprise than anything else when I couldn’t find the offending area. I know we do this a lot, especially with spiritual occurrences or unexplained happenings. We try and find a logical reason for things and make this logic fit into the occurrence, when all the while we could be miles off in our reasoning. Last night was a classic example for me. We were driving home along the Awanui straight, turned onto State Highway 10 and drove a few kilometres before climbing the hill into the Kareponia settlement. I wondered where all the lighting was coming from as there usually weren’t any lights of this nature there. Then I saw the sign, Awanui. We were just reaching this township, rather than having already travelled through it, five or so minutes earlier. How could I have been so far out in my reckoning? The road from Kaitaia to Awanui is flat and mostly straight, so how could I have thought I had climbed a winding hill during this ride. Yet my brain had thought this and I believed this to be so. Admittedly it was raining, with visibility obscured, but somehow, I had placed myself five kilometres ahead of where I actually was. I hadn’t had anything to drink.
The experience left me with a creepy feeling inside but a good example of me believing something that wasn’t actually how it was, just as I assumed the mould smell was coming from behind the bed. I must admit I was relieved when I reached the other side of Kareponia as I wondered whether the experience had been some kind of forewarning. Nothing else seemed amiss with the rest of the journey.
How many times in our lives do we misinterpret events or others’ actions or intentions, telling ourselves our own stories to make everything make sense for us?
When I smelt that moudly smell again this morning, my first thought was of the bed, then I had to convince myself that no, it wasn’t the bed, other people were smelling it too. My brain sure can be stubborn at times.