....find me at the altar of something I can barely understand
a perfume counter chronicle & the grief of a scent memory
I never thought there would be a moment when I could smell Sì by Armani and not be immediately thrust back into the red spandex cowl neck dress I inherited in the locker room within my first month of dancing. I associate it with after hours at a bar and a period of my life in which I was doing too much cocaine—quickly learning that, for me, “too much” is any amount at all.
The first time I smelled that perfume I thought, this is the greatest scent in the world. I felt that it transmitted something about my essence I wanted to cultivate–magnetic and sweet.
It was also during the period of time that I was using the same fragrances at work as I was in my personal life. Rookie mistake. This blurred the sensory boundaries between nightlife and day-to-day, causing me to wear out the scent more quickly.
The red cowl-neck dress was soaked in Sì. Days-worth of spritzes layered like sweet piss on a urinal cake. I wore it through stage sets and lapdances and coos of “you smell so good” and telling myself “I smell so good” until it made me sick. Sì would soft-hustle her way into the VIP by becoming lace doily in human form. Saccharine maraschino cherries and the kind of doe-eyed sweetness that slowly overpowers and blunts out everything else.
I was overusing, so I brought Libre by YSL into the rotation. A little more punchy, I wore Libre when I wanted to bully men and be a brat. Can’t say I was ever truly mean. I unfortunately don't have it in me, though I have all the tools at my disposal to do so. Libre was a machine—back to back dances, drop splits and heel clacks onstage. Deluge of bills and an absence of feeling.
Inside me there are two wolves: one is a raging bitch with top notes of mandarin and a floral heart of French lavender.
The other is a yes girl, with top notes of blackcurrant liqueur, a heart of Rose de Mai and Freesia, with a base of oakmoss and patchouli.
Both are chypre fragrances – a scent profile characterized by softness, restraint and an earthy, woody base.
And I’ve had to abandon them both.
I don’t have any type of “signature” scent. This winter, I flirted with an amber and fig fragrance. It made me feel like a woodland fairy. Now, though, when I smell it, I’m hemmed in by the darkness of winter, and it feels like I’m caught in a bog. The boundary between then and now is too porous, but distinct enough that spritzing the fragrance doesn’t feel like a continuation of my life, an unbroken line in time, but rather, revisiting something too soon before it has had the time to cauterize. Spraying it is a reminder that time is an open wound.
The hot magma of memory is dangerous, and fragrances can start a blaze my body is unprepared to handle. Our olfactory capacities lie close to the locus of memory in the brain: the hippocampus (if you saw a hippo on campus, you wouldn’t forget it… a trick from a neuroscience professor that stuck).
When I saw Sì at the perfume counter recently I thought, let me see. It’s been a while. I was ready for the dagger and prepared to be confronted with an olfactory apparition of my younger self and the spaces she haunted. I sprayed it on the fragrance blotter and took a whiff.
I felt nothing.1
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Inviting you to join me on this exploration of scent, grief, and possibility. Here are some of my favorite writings on fragrance and memory. What are yours?
In Sensorium: Notes for My People by Tanaïs
The Olfactions: Poems on Perfume by Anne Gorrick
Atomizer: Poems by Elizabeth Powell
Invitation/ Writing prompt: Scents can be bridges, portals, but also structures for containment. As you go through your day, make a note of when you smell something new. Create a scent journal. Then, if you like, construct a narrative with them. A day in the life using only smells.
Writing prompt: What does your god smell like?
Writing/ editing prompt: Following the way that both Elizabeth Powell and Tanaïs organize their work, employ the structure of fragrance to write about a memory or something that continues to bring grief and heartache.
Top/Head Notes -
Heart Notes -
Bass Notes -
Repeat this structure as many times as you want. At the end, you can experiment with what the piece is like if you take away the titles or keep them.
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Beijinhos. Happy writing, happy thinking. Happy Pride. Stay inspired and remember to check every day who you are in service to. Don't get pulled from your center. The riptide of capitalism and dominant culture is strong, insidious, and subtle at times. What is your time, labor, energy and love going towards? Remember to renew your vows to what enlivens you the most. x
Thank you, as always, for spending a slice of your precious time here with me! This is a reader-supported newsletter. If you would like to support my work further, please consider subscribing to the paid tier.
Full disclosure: my friend (who was the recipient of the remainder of my bottle a few year ago when I couldn’t take it anymore), pointed out later that what I actually smelled was the intense version of the fragrance. The foundation of this experiment was flawed!
time; that open wound 🗡️
heehee, I'm having fun thinking who the two wolves inside me might be and what the structures of their fragrances might smell like! Thanks Emily, these are always a pleasant escape!