Sue: use of sense data

Following the late morning performance, Charlotte rushed from the circus to her locum work at the dentist’s practice in Bournemouth.

The tangy, mixed aromas of diesel, mud, musty canvas and popcorn soon faded. Charlotte was no longer aware of how her body absorbed these smells, so she always took the precaution of showering before she left the site.

The sea of faces and the reactions to her performance were less easy to eradicate.  The collective response of the audience … chatter, coughs, shuffles, whoops, applause in the right places..was always unpredictable. She tried hard to deconstruct and categorise the responses after each performance. The bottom line seemed to be that all performers, including her, instinctively knew when they had got it right but had no idea of how to ensure a desired audience response each time. She was also mystified as to how she could instantly recognise and label silences, such as silent disappointment or silent awe.

Charlotte was more practiced in knowing what to do and getting it right, in her more familiar environment, the dentist’s practice.

The practice was a stark contrast to the soft sided, drafty, noisy, chaotic and smelly big top. Despite the scenic posters and piped classical music, it was essentially a sterile, predominantly white and hard-edged environment. Cold metal instruments looked like medieval torture devices, yet when switched on, reflected modernity through their high-pitched electronic pulses and screeches.

Most people anticipated their visits as a form of voluntary torture, undertaken for the greater good of their health. In addition to the dreaded drill, patients associated the smell of the dentist with fear and pain. At worst, all their fears would be realised, accompanied by the indignities of numbness, dribbling and more expensive treatments to come. At best, their clean-mouth, smooth-teeth feel or instant resolution of nagging problems would offset any anticipated or temporary discomforts.

To Charlotte, the dentist’s practice felt womb-like, secure, safe and tranquil.

In perfect control, she laid out her instruments in ordered lines and picked up the printouts of notes that accompanied her appointments list.  The receptionist had scrawled hand-written notes in red biro on some of the patient’s records. For reasons she could not fathom, this felt like a personal violation to Charlotte, temporarily spoiling her calm. She took a deep breath – inhaling the clove-like aroma of eugenol, mixed with fluoride, mint, surgical alcohol and latex. She was immediately soothed. She loved this aroma, which defined for her, the smell of clean.