Sign up here.
1.
Rome smelled of the fat rim of a piece of guanciale melting in the afternoon heat and blending with the dust, pollen and pollution of the busy, busy city. Elegant strangers wearing hearty jasmine fragrances. Feeling a very specific urge to wear vanilla -- a very specific vanilla, too. Vittoria Apuana by Profumi del Forte. Warm banana, pulpy mandarin, supple vanilla. A thin coat of golden shimmer over the notes, like a sparkle of sweat from the sun. Maybe the latter is the amber at the bottom, or just how I've been wearing the perfume in the past, on the warmest of summer days.
2.
The other day, walking around the supermarket, I smelled the rare occurrence of mothballs. Not the alt-aunt wooden kind filled with lavender, but the white, strongly chemical stuff made of Naphthalene that smells of killing, and in fact, was banned many years ago due to serious concerns over their safety. It’s a scent I recognise because, well, it’s difficult not to, but also because every Christmas in my family tends to begin with the smell of Naphthalene. To make the story short, mice once decided to nest in the boxes of Christmas tree decorations stored in our basement. Although the poison is long gone, its pungent scent still lingers and marks the beginning of the festive season in my parents' house. The smell itself is unsettling, yet it is connected to something good.
Read the full text here.
Read it here.