When memory is a seeing eye: DSH Pandora

The first time I sprayed, I smelled dust.  Book dust.  No, something that had been pressed between the pages of a favorite volume that was older than me.

As it evolved, it bloomed into something more alive, as the dust faded, and one of those just above skin auric clouds appeared, a blended floral, with a something that drew me in -- that something having the same allure as some of my vintage chypres, but not being just that.

I was enchanted, and I didn't even know by what.  Whatever it was, if this was Trouble, I had Hope for a long and happy future with it.

The tradition of pressing leaves into a book to preserve them is relatively familiar.  The idea being that you can preserve at least a portion of that which is destined to become past, to be history.  But are you familiar with "Bible leaf," a.k.a. costmary?  Costmary used to be a basic kitchen garden plant, and its longish, somewhat wide leaves were pressed between the pages of bibles to help church goers stay awake during an all-day service.  In other words, what was pressed between the pages, an intentionally gathered waft, was placed not for rememberance, but for bringing one into the moment.  A moment which, of course, you were supposed to pay attention to so you could remember it later.

not costmary, from the project described at Create by Maria Apostolou

***
I, and others, have discussed the idea of scents that seem to hover just above your skin before.  In my ruminations, I put their place in space somewhere between "sillage" and "skin scent."  They appear not in someone's wake, and not by burying your nose in and snorfling.  They are in some ways my favorite presence, one which does not announce itself in advance, but one which still manages to exist off of skin.

Pandora pulls the nifty trick of maintaining that aura, and having a skin snorfle, too.  I love this.  This is my favorite way of thinking of people, with the immediately registered, the something you learn when you gain closer access, and the limited glimpses of something deep and private.  Open the book, find the pressed leaf, catch a first whiff memory impression, scratch the surface and it comes to life.

***
Costmary is a perennial that should be renewed by division every few years, since the old plant becomes bare at the center. Dig up small plants that pop up in the garden, or this plant could become a weedy pest.

- deZine by Maggie

Gardeners know that most perennials need division in order to be rejuvenated.  A classic sign of a perennial that is in need of attention is that the clump dies out in the middle, the newer shoots/roots taking on life even as the original section lets go of it.


In a way, I feel that what Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has managed to do with Pandora is to take a division from an existing plant and bring it back to life in a new setting, and that in doing so, the the plant takes on a new character.


When I go in for the snorfle, as I pass the opening whiff of dry opening the book, enter the floral cloud above my skin, and extract a hit of the depths beneath, I do NOT smell my beloved vintage chypres.  Not Coty, not Millot, not any particular one.  Not even that something, exactly.  But, I *do* find that the style of attraction that pulls me in is just the same -- the happiness of the Coty, the greenness of the Millot.  Pandora is, however, its own something.


And it is lovely.


***
What is this Pandora?  Plucked from the past, plonked into the present, for me it is a journey that starts with memory and puts me very much in this moment, with all the palimpsest layers of reading backward through a written and virtual herbal, and then again being woken up and finding yourself here, now, not in the midst of a sermon, but a moderately rich floral bouquet that needs to not be too loud so that you can appreciate the background -- plant based, leafywoodyslightlyhumusy, not exactly chypre not exactly amber.

If you haven't guessed, I like it.  

costmary, image from Women Who Run With Delphiniums

***

Do you want to play with Pandora?  DSH Perfumes has offered to share a 3ml sample to a reader.  Comment here to register your interest.  Drawing will held on Tuesday, September 27, at noon U.S. central time.  

Because how often do you see THAT as the time and or time zone???  Plus, it's a new moon.


DRAWING IS CLOSED.
WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED...BY MOONSET.  
  (moonset over the westernmost Great Lakes region, that is)

Tempus Fugit (but not from A to B)

That there is the hyacinth I introduced you to a few weeks ago.  This picture was taken today, March 8.  It started popping the flower stalk a few days ago, and every time a new one of those flower "bubbles" opens, a fresh burst of hyacinth smell gently wafts out.  Not far, mind you, but I'm more than happy to bring my nose to the vase.

It's particularly pleasant to be able to do so after nearly a week of scent-free living.  Well, seeing as one can't really live scent-free, let's call it "scent-avoidant" living.  As in, steering clear of purposely applied fragrances, and known tummy rumblers like the TJ's chili my spouse is so fond of, certain fried foods, and pet incidents.

My own child and his variation of The Thing That Passed Through?  Well, I'm a parent.  Can't really avoid that.

Anyway, time moves on.  Time.  As in "Time is the thing that keeps everything from happening at once," which someone posted on Facebook today.  Or as in the thing you must endure to finally experience the smell of a hyacinth.  The thing that heals all wounds.  The thing that allows you to get a glimpse of how Mitsouko could be beautiful.  The thing that has etched my face with charming character when I smile or puzzle to comprehend something.  The thing the boy wanted to see fly when he threw his alarm clock out the window.

It's been a week since I've written here.  Not my intent.

***
Yesterday was Pulaski Day in Chicago and portions of its environs.  Growing up in Detroit, I was aware of the contributions of one Taddeus Kosciuszko, because there is a big honking stature of him charging on horseback there.  Wikipedia tells me that "in Poland, every major town has a street or square named for him."  An engineer who became friends with Jefferson, rebuilt forts, was entrusted by Washington to rebuild West Point, and served the USA for seven years, Kosciuszko ultimately dedicated his estate for purchasing the freedom of slaves.  Kosciuszko was difficult to spell, but easy to become a fan of.

I moved to Chicago, and learned schools and city offices closed because of another Polish national who fought in the Revolutionary War, Casimir Pulaski.  What with no spelling challenge and free time to share with friends, it took me a while to motivate and dig up just what Pulaski did to merit such recognition.

At the oversimplified expense of a guy who seems to have served our country nobly, I've picked up that he was a Polish noble who fought the Russians who then came over here and took a hit of grapeshot.

And therefore shares company with the pirate known as Black Bart.

The mind reels at the potential for local political humor, but I'm going to bring it back to perfume.  Or at least smelling.  Believe it or not.

**

So, thanks to Not Black Bart Pulaski, much of my local universe has the day off.  Including Younger Son.  I decide that after last week -- a Black Week in our health indeed -- we would be well served to get fresh air and stroll the grounds of the Botanic Garden.  The fact that we are at the 42nd parallel, more or less, and that winter and spring are still playing a mean game of chicken does not daunt me.  Time to move.  Time to find that evidence of spring's inevitable arrival I saw during the near 50ºF outburst last Friday.

It was near freezing.  And terribly grey.  So the air was fresh, but pretty pictures were hard to come by.  As was evidence of the impending turn of the earth.  Time, more time, required.

We slogged forth, nonetheless.

It was too cold to catch a whiff of that wonderful humus and dirt smell that a certain kind of spring day carries.  Too cold even to smell the kind of moist air that says "spring."  So we walked, and took pictures, and I spent a little time observing the thing that garden landscapers know:  Nature doesn't work in boxes, and neither should you.  Amorphous shapes, curves...phi.

There was something really quite wonderful about remembering that.  Because I had just "lost" a week of time.  And was feeling a little lost myself as a result.  Usually I'm pretty good at rolling with it.  But this was a day when I really, really, really, could have used a dose of spring.  I thought.

What I was given was the reminder that when given time, Nature works in contours, not straight edges.  And that ended up being being a fine gift indeed.

Now I'll show you the snowdrops.  

Because I remembered that, when given the choice, I don't go for the straight edges anyway.  I remember that, as I've been saying, spring will come, but you've got to give it time.  So the snowdrops were a delight, but it was important to remember time and contours first.

Tomorrow, back to perfume.  Marina and I are going to give some thoughts on L'Accord (Code 119).  And it will be just about the right moment to follow the curve back to sniffery.

Meanwhile, I'm still poring over garden catalogs.  Going to pick out a grapevine to plant.  You know--so that every time I see a bunch hanging, I can nod to Black Bart and Casimir.  

all photos are author's own

Offskin, aka The Space Between Us

One of the worst professors I ever had said two of the most memorable lines from my undergraduate life.


The first was part and parcel of satire:  {cue gravelly voiced, tired, tousled, deigning, gray haired presence at front of room, with what might appear to be the somewhat older denizens of Fast Times at Ridgemont High filling seats in a classroom furnished more like a high school than a college} "The mind, class, is like a sieve..."  {Various reactions make clear that this is a refrain as familiar, and perhaps as frequently punctuated, as "...take one down and pass it around..."}


But the other, the one that I have revisited many times: "It was not the icon itself, but the space between the icon and the viewer, that was worshipped."


Score one for Byzantine history, the Orthodox church, and the professor.  This one has not fallen through the sieve, and will not, ever.

•••••
Recently, I have worn two scents that have struck me as beautiful, but never when snarfed/huffed.  Only when experienced as that which floats above the skin.  It wouldn't be fair to say their "sillage," for in my mind the idea of "sillage" is a nearly visible vapor trail that is left in a wearer's wake.  No, this was the air above my wrist, discovered as I leaned over to pick up a paper, or reached up to open a cupboard.  If I tried to put nose to skin to discover the source, I got something different.  It was only as I pulled back that I got a hint of how to find the source.

It was a space above my skin, waiting to be discovered.  It would not be left behind as or after I left the room, but hovered there, somewhere above me, but not exactly part of me.  It took a combination of perfume on skin, plus a "viewer" searching the area above, to discover it.

•••••

"Many people make the mistake of thinking that these images were created as idol worship.  That is wrong.  They were an image of an idol, or perhaps more accurately, a concept, something to be reminded of.  The purpose of the image, which you will notice is rather two-dimensional, was to allow for an interaction between the viewer and the representation.  The act of reflecting, of contemplation, caused the space in between to be sacred.  That space was only "alive" or sacred during the act of contemplation.  


Thus, it was not idol worship, but idol contemplation, if you will; but do not confuse reverence for object deification.  Or, indeed, deification of a person.  It was as if the idol allowed for, in combination with a reverential viewer, a sacred space.  It was the space that mattered, and it only mattered during the act."

•••••
Vintage Houbigant Aperçu and Nina Ricci Filles de Eve are two examples of perfumes that I find are better experienced off skin than on it.  Filles de Eve in particular; when I go in for the close up, it falls apart.  It's all old lady perfume, and not particularly complex.  I persisted in trying it, because I had smelled it on a friend in perfume, and remembered it as beautiful.

The trick of memory was to adjust the preposition.  I hadn't smelled it on a friend; I had smelled it off a friend.

Sure enough, I've caught the cloud a couple of times now.  Much better.  I am still sussing Filles de Eve out, and not sure if I love it, or I am just having fun visiting.  In fact, I may decide I have fun visiting, but don't like it at all.  Aperçu is actually more likely to be my bag, though I am still not sure why.  For one thing, it has more layers to it, at least as it plays out in my nose.  The thing is, taking time to think about exactly what is playing out in my nose is distracting me from that space, that beautiful space just off of my skin.

•••••
I'll be spending time in the future sorting out whether or not I find this phenomenon more prevalent in older style perfumes than newer ones.  As it happens, I am wearing Andy Tauer's Reverie au Jardin as I write this, and this is one that I love discovering offskin.  But, and perhaps and important "but" to consider as I try to sort this out, Reverie au Jardin is pretty faithful in the huff.  What you catch in the cloud is what you find on your skin.  Not that I'm complaining.  Just saying.

Today, I am all about offskin.  This space between us.  Present, perhaps, only when someone stops to contemplate it.

image of Saint Stephen icon from greek-icons.org