Living Rootless: Word of the Year: Joy 11: Scentsuality

Monday, November 1, 2021

Wild honey nectar candle. Source: DW Home

Mmmmmm, the sensual joy of fragrance.

To borrow from a past post, there are so many aromatic characters:

Below are scents that have delighted me in this time of COVID, inviting me to

breathe deeply,

to dwell in the moment I'm in.

Wild honey nectar candle
Rosemary needles captured in the wilds of residential Birmingham and Las Cruces, which I plucked, inhaled deeply of, and bit into.

Rosemary collected from across the street. Birmingham, Alabama. November 2020.

Basil growing in my kitchen. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

Sentimental, vintage scent of White Shoulders, an enormous bottle of which I stumbled upon in a friend's closet, who had received it as a gift, and which she re-gifted to me. The fragrance is light and pretty. In a pandemic, anointing oneself with a spray of pretty is a sweet joy.
Community Coffee's Pecan Praline flavored coffee, mmm, delicious smell. It also reminds me of a time I shared with my mother, when I took her for a pre- or post-op check with an opthmalogist. We had a coffee together in the medical building's little breakfast bar, chatting about nothing in particular, but enjoying the time together. Pecan praline-flavored coffee was on tap that morning.
Super-fishy essence of fish sauce, anchovies, sardines. Their aggressive umaminess brings forth a perverse pleasure in the coupling of revulsion and attraction. Somehow, their aroma smacks my senses in a way that reminds me: I am alive. As they were, once, and it is as if I smell their essence of both death and life. The joy does not come from any pleasure in their demise. It comes from a reminder to me that I am alive in this moment. And that I'd better goshdarn notice that, appreciate it, and be in it.