Forcing bulbs

Papery outside, soft mealy nut inside.  Onion of potential.

While vulnerable when out of the ground, in the ground, a bulb is capable of pushing aside compacted soil that would make a Bobcat cry in frustration.

It is a power that can and should be used for good.

∞∞∞∞
Many people like to have forced bulbs around their home as part of the winter holiday decorations/atmosphere, but me, I'm not so keen on that.  I know that winter is going to drag on, and often doesn't even start hitting full force until after the new year has begun.  It's inevitable; around here, there's something about the middle of January.  You look around you, you are no longer all Winter Wonderland sleigh bells jingling in your ears holiday festive; you look around you, and you see frozen tundra, hopefully covered by at least some snow, because turf is bleak right around now.

You look around you, and you know.  Winter settled in around you, and it set up shop while you relaxed your standards and padded up on holiday goodies.  Winter was like a cat, coming in and getting onto your lap perhaps without you even realizing it, but suddenly you realize you have reached out to pet the creature, who has entirely molded themselves to your contours.

Winter is all about you.  And it will leave when it is good and ready.

∞∞∞
I alternately chuckle and get peevish when I hear folks talk about "signs of spring" right now.  You have got to be out of your cotton-pickin' mind.  In fact, only cotton picking minds could even conceive of such a thing...sure, maybe where you are, a wayward jonquil is poking its green tips through your soil.  But up here they're daffodils, dude, and unless your dryer vent played a dirty trick on a small patch, or Mother Nature sent up a warm spell in December that fooled 'em, daffodils won't be poking up for a couple months yet.

NOW is an excellent time to start bringing a little spring green into the house.  From scratch.  To remind yourself of all the effort it takes to move out from under winter's blanket.

∞∞
"Forcing" a bulb is a beautiful experience with a horrible name.  Whenever I read or hear it, I imagine People for the Ethical Treatment of Bulbs joining forces with Amnesty International to protest the inhuman (inbulban? infoliate? malfloral?) flogging of innocent life form storehouses.  It even makes me wince a little bit when I set up my river rocks and pebbles and little glass marbles in pottery here and there, as if I am setting up some sort of bear trap.  Forcing.  Against their will.  Ouch.

Nonetheless, I get over it.

And I play with water, and pebbles, and bulbs, and enjoy the slightest smell of dirt, the faintest smell of water.  (Yes, your water smells.  It might smell like chlorine, it might smell vaguely rusty, or air passing over it might simply smell "ozonic"--but it smells.  I'm guessing you knew that.)  I prop the bulbs pointy side up, I make sure their bottoms are hovering just above water, and I even put them in light, even though I know they don't need light until the green spears start poking up.  Because I enjoy checking on them, to see what is...dare I say this without seeming too sappy?...a tiny wonder.

hyacinth (click. enlarge, see root bumps)

Things happen.

Roots start appearing underneath the bulb, trusting they will find the water they somehow know is there. (I mean, how cool is that?  They sat in a bag or a box for months, and didn't bust a single move, and suddenly...tentacular reaching....)  Then, voila! a green tip is suddenly at the tip.  And then all starts growing, and the green tip becomes a shoot that seems impossibly long in proportion to the height of the bulb, and yet it manages to hold itself up...and then, if you have forced a paperwhite narcissus, the start of a flower that announces its arrival before it even fully unfurls.  A fragrance so powerful, it forces some grown men to leave the room.

All from that bulb you were afraid of destroying just a short time before.

But make no mistake.  Yes, miracle of life inside your house, pumping out green and scent on your tabletop...but outside, still winter.

This is okay.  Because, despite my flagrant disregard for the potentially abusive treatment of bulbs, I am no fan of forcing seasons to come.  I can wait.  I use the bulbs not to fool my mind, or even fool my eye. I see full well what is beyond the window that brings light to the bulbs.

I like the contrast.  I like the reminder that some things just take time.  I like also remembering that certain pleasures can only come in this season, whether they are the smell of woodsmoke when you walk the dog, the chance to actually use the cross country skis, the squealing happinesses of a snowman being built on the neighbor's lawn.  Or even the act of nothing, the drape of snow that insulates all the potential growth underneath it, keeping it warm for now, letting it rest.

Fallow times can actually be quite good for what lies beneath.

∞
So, keep your signs of spring to yourself.  There isn't even a witchhazel showing its fake bloom around here yet.  We're USDA Zone 5A and above, thank you very much.  We are frozen in and just now settling into the routine that is winter.  Weeks and weeks before we bust out of our skins.

A trick which, if we take the time to reflect, we recognize is a miracle worth waiting for.

It may be Fleur d'Narcisse for me today.  Not to push a season, but to think of it.  I'll wear it, and think.  Maybe I'll do busy winter things.  Maybe I'll cozy up with a blanket.  And find myself with a cat on my lap.

images author's own

Once again, a turn of the earth

Another equinox come and gone.


With me apparently lost in the earth's turnings.  Sorry about that.

I woke up with this morning with the Fleur de Narcisse I had applied yesterday afternoon a bit boozier, a bit sweeter, and still ever so wonderful.  There is something about this one that matches "equinox" so perfectly for me.  I suspect, as I have mused before, that it connects with the same part of me that so loves digging in the dirt, putting my nose in flower and foliage, and lifting a slightly cocked head to the air to catch wafts of cut grass and cooked compost.

FdN has been a guilty and peculiar passion of mine since I first smelled it.  It doesn't "develop," really, though I could swear it "integrates."  Especially during times of the year when your clothing and the temperature DO "develop" during the day.  (Layers on, layers off.  See your breath, get warmed by the sun.)  Fleur de Narcisse is something that I don't even bother to take out of its precious little crate during much of the year.

Kind of like I don't even bother to peek inside the compost pile during high summer or the depths of winter.

But now...now...let's take the fork and poke in there a bit.  Naw, let's stab heartily and turn it over and see what we've got.

When life is good, in the pile you find something dark and easily crumbled and just the right moist and know it will be good for your garden.  In the crate, you find something bright dark and with depth and though it sings the same chord you are happy to let it ring like a prayer bowl and just get lost inside it.

Both smell good.

Once upon a time I was afraid to write about FdN, because it was/is so darn expensive.  I could pull the "what with the change in attitudes and prices when it comes to perfume, the L'Artisan harvest range is now more hiccup in thinking rather than deal breaker" attitude.  Because I won't.  Because putting down more than two C-notes (see, still the guilt; really, it's straight up three C's) for a bottle of perfume is putting down a lot of hours of working-persons paycheck.  Of course, why people were so comfortable picking on L'Artisan for this, and yet openly purchasing bottles of, say, Uncle Serge, which is nearly the same price per ml, I'm not quite sure.  The "exclusive" presentation?  Please.  There's no better run cult than that of Serge Lutens.  To be sure, I love Chergui...I mean, a LOT, especially in the right season...but I'd rank my Chergui experience in the same plane as my Fleur de Narcisse one.  As in, rich, heady, takes me away...but about the same in complexity and "evolution."

I'd argue that somebody did a much better job of selling one pile of compost over another.

Nonetheless, things are what they are.  Perfume folk are trying to decide how to get their hands on the juice inside an exclusive Scandinavian bottle.  Meanwhile, somewhere Eau de Polder sits unchatted about in a cute flask.  No, not an artisan bottle.  I get that.  But I'm just saying...

Oh, fie.  "Uncle," I cry.  Quality of juice and packaging and willing climate among consumers and adept sales machines and all get muddled together often enough.  I'm going to go back to my last wafts of Fleur de Narcisse, whose tobacco-y hay-ed somewhat liquered up narcissus has been such a source of pleasure this round.

***
Incidentally, patient readers with a good memory will recall that my bottle of FdN was an anniversary gift from my spouse of limited identity and only occasional mention.*  It occurs to me that there is no finer tangible substance to offer up as a gift marking many, many years of togetherness than a something which is not easily obtained, yet is easily identified (limited harvest, narcissus), and which brings hearty pleasure, yet only to the right audience (my experience, my peculiar nose).  It's nowhere near the date, but the ability to unearth the discovery of a Happy Anniversary is, as a famous fan of compost used to say, a Good Thing.

*Bonkers, as I like to refer to refer to Flittersniffer, author of "Bonkers About Perfume," once ruminated on how perfume bloggers refer to their significant others.  (See "Dear Husband...")  Nicknames abound, as she pointed out.  Here, there is none.  Whether that pronouncement should have a "yet" attached to it is yet to be determined.


Photo credit: author's own.

Falling in Love, 2009

Today, I participate in a joint bloggers project -- "Falling in Love: Scents and Treats for Fall."
My treat is the falling in love; I offer but a single scent today, because I wrap my experience of re-falling in love with it with the joy that is the moment of creative flow.  Hope you enjoy; thanks for stopping by.  


The full list of participating bloggers appears at the bottom of my post.  Please visit all as you get the chance.  


Happy Fall.
✍
This is what it is like to sit in the middle of an orchestra.  You are surrounded by people, arcing to either side.  You face the conductor, who seeks to pull your heart and talent through his or her own while at the same time they reach out to you, the collective you, to seek your heart and find the empathetic waves.  Empathetic sound waves that find themselves vibrating together in pitch and creating a new sound as a result.  Empathetic rhythms that both groove together and play off each other.  Empathetic tonal qualities that respect and expand on each other.  The sum is greater than its parts.

You are dancing together.  Each of your individual movements matter, but mean so much because of what they are in the whole.

~~~~

I have loved L’Artisan’s Fleur d’Narcisse from the first time I wore it.  The idea of narcissus drew me in--not the myth, the flower.  I am an avid gardener, a passion that didn’t erupt until I was clearly established as an adult.  Narcissus--daffodils to us northern gardeners--has been a favorite flower from the start of my gardening days.  From before, actually; one of the first drawings I remember creating in response to a teacher’s assignment to “draw a flower.”  I also recall her saying “think of spring flowers.”

~~

When an orchestra is composed of talent who is young, or not top-flight, or exploring a genre outside their comfort zone, their work at arriving at a fully presented piece can be full of fits and starts.  Entire passages of beauty and ensemble, peppered with pockets of struggle from single players or an entire section.  The zone to your left may have an all out groove going on, and to your right is two people on a stand, trying to find their pitch.

~~~~

Narcissus bulbs are planted in fall.  They are, according to some books, full of “potential energy."

~~

There is a moment in rehearsal when you know you are nailing it.  Collectively, individually, single player to conductor, within the section, across sections...all the possible ways to pick apart the composition that is the piece being played.  Part of you may even feel a certain joy as it observes the experience from a slightly detached viewpoint, but the rest of you is in the moment, a moment that is not frozen but ever proceeding.

~~~~~

There was a moment I had with Fleur de Narcisse the other day.  It was one of those fall days that had been grey, cold without the crisp promise of transition.  Then the sun came out, and the clouds sat in stark relief against a sky that had patches of brilliant blue even as areas of grey hovered at one horizon.  It became crisp.  Fall became fall, that season where you feel both where you have come from and where you are going.

I huffed at my wrist...a thing I do on a regular basis, now that I’ve developed this passion for perfume.  I was expecting that happy snorfling around I usually have with FdN, rooting around in hay and tobacco with an aura of warmed by sunshineness that I have always gotten from it.

Instead, I got daffodils.

Narcissus poeticus, the vegetal parts with a hint of that odd scent from the flower, stretching up out of its bulb, green stem poking up between compost.  Hay and tobacco compost, yes, but THERE WAS THE NARCISSUS.  Holy cow.  A year with this scent, and I am having an epiphany.  The narcissus was always there.  

It just needed that moment when I experienced the empathetic chord.

Oh. my. 

And, like those times when you are inside the music and it is all working just so, you are having a moment.  But the moment is not frozen, it is the point of realization plus all that flows from that moment.  

~~

Fleur de Narcisse is me falling in love.  Fleur de Narcisse is fall.  Yes, it is a spring flower.  But our knowledge of the spring flower rests on the previously established potential.  

Our appreciation of fall lies in the knowing that another spring will come, while reading back through the history that has defined us to that point even as we prepare for another regeneration.

Falling in love occurs in that moment when you recognize what lies in front of you, how beautiful the moment you are having together is, and what it is going to be to drawn out of that empathetic moment...and the potential yet-to-be created moments.

~~~~~

Thank you, Fall 2009, for bringing me my epiphany and accord with Fleur de Narcisse.  I’ve fallen in love all over again.

other bloggers in the Falling in Love project:

The Non-Blonde

Bittergrace Notes

Under the Cupola

Mais que Perfume

Ayala Smelly Blog

Savvy Thinker

Olfactarama

Ars Aromatica

Mossy Loomings

I Smell therefore I am

Tea Sympathy and Perfume

and, she who led us all in to this happy project,

Perfume Shrine


photo credit:  "Autumn in Sepia" by Rick Lundh (via gallery.photo.net)

one scent ... or many?

The Holy Grail, versus a wardrobe.

The One, or a scent library.

I don't know if I'll ever return to a search for a "signature scent," my holy grail of perfume.  I do know that when I first started falling down the rabbit hole of scent, I was determined to find a scent that was clearly "me."  And I did find three that came close, any one of which would be a good candidate for the just one scent I was allowed if there were such restrictions in the universe.  They are:

• L'Artisan Fleur d'Narcisse
• Parfumerie Generale Bois Blond
• Tauer Reverie au Jardin

Each is rather distinctive, which is something that would seem to fit "signature" scent by definition.  (Though upon writing that it seems perfectly fair to argue that a person's signature scent could be all about just "smelling good" to the maximum amount of people, or blending in, or what have you.)  Each also has a clear vegetal element, hay, narcissus, lavender, galbanum.  That has proven to be a common "me" element through my descent, even as I learn more notes and my general attractions open up and shift.

But I don't know if any would be on a Top 5, or even Top 10, list for recommendations for a scent wardrobe.  None are scents that appear in the current version of my regular rotation.  And for a fragrance wardrobe, which (for me, at least) needs to incorporate woody, oriental, fresh, classic, and comfort among its elements--see, already five down--I would go elsewhere. Perhaps, following those elemental guidelines:

• DKNY Black Cashmere (or YSL Nu)
• Guerlain Shalimar
• Guerlain Eau de Imperiale  (or Annick Goutal Mandragore, or Prada Infusion d'Iris)
• Chanel Bois des Iles  (or maybe Lanvin Arpege, or Jolie Madame)*
• Givenchy Organza Indecence  (or Guerlain Bois de Armenie, or Parfumerie Generale  L'Ombre Fauve, or Serge Lutens Chergui, or...there are many, many in this category)

I haven't even touched earth or galbanum yet, which I absolutely, positively must have, and could perhaps satisfy with a bottle of Jacomo Silences.  So, I guess, cut the classics, because while I like to have them around, maybe I don't absolutely, positively have to have them.

But then what do I do with Bois des Isles, which is both "me" and "classic" and not ever going to leave my real life options?  Go ahead, bring on your hired guns; you'll have trouble prying it out of my cold, dead hands.  (Oh, dear; apparently too much Mafia Wars and cowboy references this week.)

And what of the rites of spring?  Diorissimo, the ritual dabbing of which from a vintage bottle is already an untouchable ceremony.  Or CB-IHP Black March, which gets used layered and alone for a few weeks just before I can huff the real stuff in my garden?  Or dismiss the gimmicks, and stick with the pained pleasure of En Passant, or Apres L'Ondee?  But if I dismiss the "gimmicks," I'll drop an important element of the rites of fall, too, when Burning Leaves and other smokes enjoy a few weeks of ritual transition.  

Uh-oh, that reminds me of another favorite category:  amber.  Should I pick a sweet one, or something more in the spice range?  Or perhaps a mix?  Or is that going to limit its use to the dead of winter???

Oh, yeah, picking out amber reminds me of another category which deserves a bottle of its own:  green.  And there are so many, which version would I pick?  Diorella?  Bel Respiro?  

I'm doomed for a five bottle wardrobe.  Let's go back to ten.  Then Bois des Isles can be its own category.  I think that's eight categories, leaving me room to pick more than one for one or two categories.  If I don't open up the categories to include florals...or bring back the "gimmicks"...

Dear heavens, I forgot leather.  I absolutely love leather.  

This exercise falls under the category "brain bending futile fun."  If I write it next week, different scents will show up.  If you came to this post hoping for an answer, I don't have one. Is it possible to have a signature scent?  Sure.  Is a fragrance wardrobe a reasonable approach? Absolutely.  

No answers, but I do know is I feel incredibly fortunate that my sniffer works and brings me such silly guilty pleasure.  And that I have discovered an incredibly enthusiastic, sharing perfume crowd who are more than happy to open my eyes (and nose) to new things.  If you are trolling the blogs as part of a regular habit, you know what I mean.  If you are just starting out...well...whatever contours your path takes, it's going to be a fun adventure, and there really is no "right" way to do it.**

*hey, notice how things that are "classic" can also veer widely from each other; and here I haven't tried to include a modern "classic"

**well...except that you should use decants and swaps.  Lots of pain, heartbreak, and cash can be saved that way.

***I am footnoting like crazy today...somebody is responsible...you know who....

****okay, it's not like crazy, and now I'm pushing the convention intentions, but what the heck...maybe one day soon I will go footnote hog wild....

I'm very confused...

...and I know it's the weather.

I have a wedding to attend, and had planned out my scent choices months ago. After all, October in the midwest...pretty clear we can jump into autumn fragrances, right? And, good fortune, my friend the bride also has a fondness for grass & hay. (In her case, her preference is for the real life version, since she spent part of her childhood on a farm. She's not into perfume.) So, I was all thinking GREEN (Manuel Canovas Ballade Verte or HAY Fleur de Narcisse, or, if the weather got cold enough, Chergui.

Now, I've got hours to go, it's sunny and over 70 degrees, I'll not be wearing any sleeves after all, I want interest and mystery but not to overwhelm my fellow guests. We'll all be in the same room for the entire evening--ceremony and dinner/reception are in the same space. ZOIKS! I don't want Chanel (Bois des Iles, for example), because that seems a bit too...I don't know. It's not hitting me right. Gourmandy vanilla-y scents are out; I'm not part of the buffet. Challenging skank-o's are not generally on my list, anyway, but I've got nothing to prove.

I want warm grass and dry hay with a hint of earth and a touch of...not musk...what????? It might end up being Bois Blonde.....

UPDATE:
Vini, Scenti, Good Timini.... I solved my dilemma as follows: Ballade Verte went on the arms & neck after all. That was the perfume that started my grass/hay/green exploration last spring, and my first thought at the first spritz was that it would be good for my friend's wedding. Plus, she's also a dancer...Ballade...Verte.... Signs pointed to "wear."

But, for a little fun, I put a smidge of L'Ombre Fauve on the back of my hands. Bare arms and hands, but "gloved" with perfume...ah, a perfume geek's in-joke. Anyway, it worked well for me, and the ceremony was of course as fabulous and unique as the friends who got married.

Event Scent vs. How I Want to Smell

I'm exploring the idea of categorizing perfumes in one of two columns:  In column A, Event Scent.  In Column B, Me Scent.

Event scents are the ones whose mere presence is an event.  They are performers.  They make you pay attention.  Not because they slap you across the face (or smother it...can you hear me, beautiful but room only for you Fracas?), but because either through their development, or the way they transport you through memory and time, you find yourself paying attention to them instead of your environment.

I mentioned SIP Black Rosette the other day as one of those perfumes.  That's one in the development category; you find yourself ignoring everything else so you can follow its development.  Then there's En Passant, on my wrist as I write, transporting me to beautiful spring, gone now, on a day when I know fall will soon be gone, too.  There's Arpege, which not only has a development event, it goads my musician self into seeing if I can identify intervals.  And there's any number of I Hate Perfume iterations, but I'll refer to Black March, because it gobsmacks me into the middle of one of my pots when I'm out with the terracota, dirt, and flats of plants on a spring day.  (I know other people get earth dirt, but I get potting soil, all the way.  Love it.)  

Opposite the Event Scent is how I want to smell.  Not simply an amplification of my own "au naturel," as it were, but a scent that extends me.  What was that line about "making me more than I am?"  There's Parfumerie Generale L'Ombre Fauve.  I could disappear into that one myself, a delicious creamy musk that is ever so slightly sweet on me.  Leather you lick.  Also from PG, Bois Blond.  That makes me feel like I'm wearing a little bit of my favorite patch of forest.  I know, not a direct association.  It's not a Christopher Brosius creepily on target re-creation.  It is an impression, and I like the way it smells, and the way it smells on me.  And then there's L'Artisan Fleur de Narcisse, which never lets you settle into thinking it's "pretty," but is a beautiful trip through a true narcissus, and hay, and what not.  Compositions, these are, in every sense of the word.

Unfortunately, this event scent/my smell duality leaves me with a few knots.  What, for example, to do with my Chanel loves?  Bois des Iles.  (Sighs.)  This is gorgeous, but I both get caught up in smelling it as wanting to smell of it.  Those aldehydes draw attention.  They're a bit showy.  They live on their own.  This means it is not a "what I want to smell like" perfume, but a "what I want you to smell on me" perfume.  There are others:  Bel Respiro.  Amarige.  (Actually, I think you could put white florals in general in this category, as far as I am concerned.)  And bridging the gap between:  Lancome Magie Noire.

Shalimar?  I love to smell it, and love to smell it on me, but I harbor no illusions that it is a part of me.  Event Scent.  Musc Samarkind?  Gently sweet, but a hint of animal that rides close to my skin and makes me double check every time I sniff.  Me Scent.  

Pondering....