Perfume

in #freewrite5 years ago

Scent of roses like an old woman’s dusty flower-shaped soaps in the candy dished milked glass, pink, puffed rugs and tight spaces. There are those overpowering wafting’s of a DuPont, aerosol-pressured, orange overtones to spray away what freshly powdered skin let’s go of, in porcelain swished, skylight-tight, no-air rooms.

I once wore, as a fifteen-year-old, caked on purple eyes and tried to guide away from cuticle edge, yellow finger shellac, the white and black, capped, a bottle of perfume dubbed Exclamation!

Years, later, married and held, in a cold, pioneered-white house, I met him again, a junior high suitor whose calves were solid as statue, his French country bike riding a Tour de France fantasy. He’d hugged me after my pointing out the constellations, Orion and Cassiopeia, said simply,

“You don’t smell the same.”

My mother rejected Christmas gifts from her mother-in-law, my grandmother, unfoiled reveals she detested and complained about in such a way that debased the blood that ran in my own veins. She simply hated color-blocked sweaters and Nina Ricci, l'air du temps and all of the Bergamot and violet with the woodsy notes of cedar and sandal, the high-hilled influences of Seattle dentistry she’d married herself into, a drilled scent she avoided, enameled crowns to cover daggered decay, the doved-topper of floral-spicy no olive branch to her.

Photo Credit: Alex Sajan/unsplash

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What an interesting style that story is written in! I enjoyed reading it. My favorite line is:

“You don’t smell the same.”

That could be a compliment or an insult.

Thank you, and yes, could be a compliment or an insult ;)

I'm voting for compliment in this case. Hee hee.

His calves were solid as statue---love it!
and a mother who hated the Bergamot and violet with the woodsy notes of cedar and sandal, the high-hilled influences of Seattle dentistry she’d married herself into - and designer label gifts only remind her. You convey so much with so few words, especially dusty flower-shaped soaps - of COURSE my grandma never ever used those pretty soaps-- nor would she burn the turkey candle for Thanksgiving. It does seem silly to make fancy candles just to burn them, but something about the extravagance of it enriches the occasion. Right? Right??

Yes! I like to find those fancy old candles at thrift shops. I think about how somebody kept them specially wrapped and stored, brought out for the holiday's and then back in the basement/attic again.
I found a really great white rabbit with red eyes for Easter that I've now kept a handful of years without burning it?? Not so difficult for me to start Santa or Christmas trees on fire, but I do love that white rabbit under the blown Easter eggs I hang on a branch tree I also rescued from my grandmother's house :)

I must exclaim: where did Nina go!? She permeated our childhoods and blocked our flow.

I feel light-headed by all you've wafted my way. The phials you've opened of begamot and violet and those woody notes I could dream myself a man up on.

No irons thrown this Christmas? My son's girlfriend's mother and grandmother top whatever dramas we might ever have had in our family when I still believed in Christmas; when wine bellowed forth to mask all the inSTIN(K)Ct to run a mile: disappointed with the modest box of chocolates from her mother, the mother (of the bat from hell), now used to diamonds after last year's bonus, feeling insulted, slammed the kitchen cabinets in a huff, declaring the party over by 8 pm. A mellow Christmas dinner then. Normally there would be an iron slinging match between mother and daughter (2nd/3rd generation). I picture it being hurled back and forth, flabberghasted by what my son relates as the apps pour in on Boxing Day. Call me picky, but this is not the kind of family I was hoping for him to marry into....

As for her (aforementioned pipistrelle's) perfume... Is it better than the smoke I have to keep on washing out of all his black clothes? (He used to look so fresh in Scandanavian blues.) It IS Chanel - so I am told as if that tells me anything. But did I ever like Chanel regardless of its number? With its airs and graces once upon a time, now lending a sense of status....

But this is just the whining of an aromatherapist who believes in the healing touch of scent. Or in the language that IS scent which tells us what is good and not so good for us.

Oh, dear! Not so funny the people our beloved children choose to associate with. I've only got one married and they seem great together, a good person for sure, but even she took some getting used to. With four, I've had my share of WHY?, why are you hanging out with that person?!
I read your letter to her mother.
My daughter is just eighteen and getting tattoo's! Her body so perfectly beautiful now marked with skulls? People tell me it's her body, that all of youth has them now, like you, I'm picky, or call me picky or old fashioned, I don't care, I didn't even drink a Coke the entire pregnancy (not that I do anyway, but you get the point). I'll love her and her brother's forevermore and continue to caution and instruct despite the rolling eyes, exaggerate the fact that I'm old and not privy to which perfumes or trends mean something I ought to know.
Yes, what happened to the freshness, sea and sky, of Scandinavian blues?
Best of luck to us both, as mother's.

Was only just a couple of hours ago wondering if my son had changed his adamant disgust on tattoos.... had visions of bats running up and down his arms.... Unfortunately his only one other hobby he ever had was turning old WWII bunkers into places for bats to hibernate.... oh, all that writing on the wall.... the walls of our pure wombs already? (well, pure enough without coke and smoke and even no French cheese....)

The words roll off the tongue. Thanks.

As always, love the usage of your words and sentences. Brilliant writing.


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