Do overs, awakenings, and fresh whallomps

It's happened a few times in the past week.  Been plonked down into a fresh look at things, musical style.

The other evening, walking out of a restaurant, hearing The Beatles "The End," right as the "...and in the end..." began.  This morning, hearing Bach "Air" Orchestral Suite #3.

I cried.  Both times.

At this point, what you might like to know about me is whether or not I am a weeper.  Of people who know me, the answer would vary.  Some know me as a rather emotional sort (what was someone said...a "raw nerve"?)  Others think of me as the ultimate Stay Calm and Carry On sort (what did someone else say..."all head, no heart"?)  The truth encompasses both.  But this is not about my personal truth.

Because this isn't about whether or not I'm an emotional nutcase, or the descendent of that guy who fainted when he heard the first chord of "Rite of Spring."  (Is that the story?  Somebody remind me what I'm thinking of.)  What this is about is the astounding power of the human mind to find itself looking at something familiar, familiar to the point of having background noise, a cliche, dismissed, even...and discovering that for some reason, it still has the power to whammy.

When it comes to music, I find this power can be experienced three ways:

1) It's as if I never heard it before, and am back to something raw and primary;
2) It's as if I never heard it this way before, that somehow the life I've lived since first being introduced has circled me around to some sort of fresh yet now full of depth of understanding "a-ha";
3) I am sitting inside a collection of musicians playing a piece and the literal physical experience of the music (oh, those thrumming vibrations, ohhh, those harmonics, oh, the way we're playing together and the way this line is coming together) turns into an emotional/psychological reverberation that is raw, primary, and ahhhh aha all at once.

There are other arts, other life experiences that can be familiar and yet gob-smackingly profound.  To Kill a Mockingbird.  The opening to Wings of Desire, or the scene in Murnau's Sunrise where the husband realizes he really does love his wife.  One human quietly reaching for another's hand, no eye contact required.  The smell of lilacs in the spring. Feeling the breeze across the lake on your bare skin. Calvin & Hobbes.  Toast.

**
This phenomenon I am trying to grasp is not to be confused with the concept of a do-over, which anybody who has spent time in playground games or sandlot sports well knows.  Something goes awry, and the gathered throng has a sort of collective ruling that, yes, somehow Universal Force was unjust or somebody acted against an unwritten but understood rule or the neighbor's dog grabbing the ball and running back home justifies something that is neither an erasure nor an elision of time,  but a second attempt, with the first being struck from the record.  A la "the jury will disregard those remarks."

**
Nor is this to be confused with an awakening, where you feel like for the first time you are fully able to apply your senses and understand something, realizing you never really got it before.  Granted, there is a kinship between an awakening and the second of my conditions, wherein you have a fresh and fuller or different view/experience.  But in an awakening, you realize you never got it before.  In a fresh whallomp, you realize you are getting it again--perhaps with a new angle--but still with that knowledge that you have been in that spot before.  And that you have been given the gift of the whallomp without taking away the gift of your past.

Fresh whallomps require the simultaneous knowledge of prior and current, even as the current seems entirely new.

In perfume parlance, my recent happy dance with Mitsouko was an awakening.  My relationship with Chamade or Bois Blond or No. 19 involves fresh whallomps.

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I love being whallomped.  Okay, so maybe not always right as it is occurring, seeing I prefer being reserved when in the company of strangers, and having tears descend out of the blue in what might seem to be an inexplicable and alarmingly precipitous way makes me at least as uncomfortable as any casual observer might be.  But I love that humans have this gift, this gift to both have a past and a powerful present that all at once suggests the ability to relish beauty and the opportunity for renewal, to adjust and/or amend our understandings.

Which I've obviously been tracing as a principle in my perfume journey.  But is best recognized as a theme in my general journey.  I hope that you have it in yours.

I'm still trying to come up with a good word for what I am trying to describe here. Rounded up and being held in the corral for consideration are gems and commoners such as gobsmacked, surprised, astonished, ambushed, thunderstruck, overwhelmed, awed.  Thunderstruck and gobsmacked keep rising to the top, but how to get in the sense of wonder and awe?  It's a "fresh whallomp" for posting purposes, but if you have ideas, please share.  Along with steering me toward the dude who fainted at the beauty of a single chord.

Let's Make a Deal

Who can show me an oddball selection of perfume samples?  First person who can show me at least three seemingly unrelated perfume samples gets to see what's behind Door #1.

What's that you say?  Simmer down!  You...and you...and you... have a stash you brought with you to the blog studio today?  That purposely or accidentally travels with you beyond your temperature and light controlled shoe box once upon a time sweater drawer special place for keeping perfume?

Ah.  Very good.  I'll show everybody door #1.  But first, let's take a look at the silly little organza pouch which caused my perfume knowledgeable friend to say "That's the oddest collection...that's just weird.  Hmmm..." as she looked through my bag o' treasures.

This bag is one I tossed together for a weekend trip out of town.  I had to satisfy multiple goals:  Have something I could wear if I decided I needed perfume (and one of my own at that), have something I could try if I decided I wanted to test drive a perfume (very different from comfortable tossing on a scent and knowing what the result will be), have something to share with a friend.  And then there were the oddballs--one that I might put on if I decide not only do I want perfume, I'm up for a challenge.

And then there's the simple "I dunno, it ended up there somehow."

But it adds up to a nice, if odd, little wardrobe.  That travels well tucked into a side pocket.

Here's the line-up:

• Cuir de Lancome
• Daybreak Violin
• L'Ombre Fauve
• Pierre de Lune
• unmarked 1ml...hmm...sharp green citrusy
• micromini of Chamade
• unmarked 2ml atomizer...bitter...old...leather? (just sniffing the orifice without spraying)
• manufacturer's samp of Parfum de Therese

In light of the subject matter of the previous post, I am having a juvenile chuckle at the expense of that parenthetical clarification of the 2ml atomizer.  (Namely, my dog.  He of the hot spot and the metal chewing habit.)

Any hoo-how, whatcha got up there is one Emperor's Clothes scent (Pierre de Lune...are you sure you applied that?), one easy leather (the Lancome), one fascinating but challenging (Parfum de Therese), one proven winner (Chamade), one something to give a drive before making any judgement (Daybreak Violin), one proven winner that has for some reason been on hiatus (L'Ombre Fauve), and a couple of things that I think I knew what they were once but whose mystery could provide a little recreational investigation if I were so inclined.

Come to think of it, this is NOT the collection I packed for my weekend.  That one was a little more purposeful.  What the heck is this?

???

To channel Ronald Reagan (perhaps in more ways than simply parroting), "I do not recall."  Hmm.  All I can say is, the Patou Cocktail and vintage Miss Balmain samples I've collected since will make a nice addition to the mystery bag.  The Cocktail adds something with sparkle, and the Miss Balmain adds another something to test drive.

Of course, I'm preoccupied with trying to remember what I purposely gathered for that weekend.  Am going to go drag THAT pouch out shortly.

And making a mental note to self:  Be sure to pack labels with those empty vials you always have at the ready.