My son never has bad breath.

He's 6 1/2 months old, and he's never had bad breath. Not once. Not when he first wakes up, not when he's been crying for hours, not right after he eats...never.

For an adult, 6 and a half months without a single episode of halitosis would be a feat worthy of television coverage, or at least an interview in a local paper...maybe in the "would you believe" section. For babies, though, it seems like the rule rather than the exception. Granted, their diet is somewhat limited; no garlic, onions, or other known dietary/olfactory offenders. Still, my kid eats squash, and peas, and carrots, and other stuff that kind of stinks just in and of itself, with nary a zephyr of fetidness to be detected in his diminutive respirations.

I'll bet if you think about the various breaths you've smelled, you'll find that the majority of them have been bad. In fact, it seems to me that I only ever really remember somebody's breath when it reeks (case in point: my high school physics teacher, who seemed to exist solely on coffee and cigarettes. A classmate of mine aptly described his breath as "smell[ing] like he ate a 10-foot asshole for breakfast"). That octagenarian Sunday School teacher who was always whispering far too closely into your face to "be quiiiiiet during the seeeeermon,"...that girl whose mouth you were so ravenously devouring last night, much to your distaste and disbelief this morning (cigarettes are sexy...)...the merit-smoking, braunschwagger-munching aunt who always wanted a kiss...look at how smelling their breath influenced not only how you felt about them at that moment, but you view of them in general. Think of how you feel about yourself on those mornings when it feels like a baby bear used your mouth for a toilet. The eyes may be the windows of the soul, but the breath, like that smell of pent-up dog in the otherwise impeccable living room, is what first hits you when you walk inside.

It's primal. An evolutionary echo to our pre-hominid existance. Smell was vital to our survival, be it in evaluating a meal (or mate), finding our way home, or detecting a threat. Though the areas of our brains that process smells have atrophied considerably over the eons, there is still hefty evidence that smell is strongly tied to the unconscious. It has been shown to trigger memory and influence emotion. Studies have purportedly shown that students taking tests do better when in the presence of certain smells (particularly if they were present when they were studying), and that sexual attractiveness may be significantly affected by odor, and I'm not talking Chanel No. 5. Smell seems to be one of those direct mainlines to the unconscious - slipping in, often unnoticed, past the gates of the conscious mind to install code right on the hardware.

And breath, ahh, breath. It was how God placed life in our clay forms, and how we first check for its presence when we suspect otherwise. Breath infuses all we do. The Latin root spirare, meaning breath, is the etymological root not only of respire, but inspire, perspire, expire, and spirit. Breathing not only sustains us, it defines us. So many of the things that pollute our whole selves also leave their stain on the air that enters and leaves our bodies - tobacco smoke, alcohol, coffee - vices that all exact a tax on the body and mind as they leave their trace on the breath. Ultimately, breath binds us all together. We all breathe the same atmosphere, each breath like the proverbial drop of water that becomes the sea as we inhale and exhale all from this same ocean of air. Breath is life. Breath is soul. Breath is essence. The breathing of another's breath is like receiving, for a time, their being into our own - the most intimate of connections. The breath of another is a fleeting experience of their very soul. We need it, we share it, and cats are said to steal it. Breath is essence. Breath is soul. Breath is life.

The breath of my son smells to me like innocence.