The year still feels new and I am fulfilling my goal of collecting the habits of others. I am sipping campari in an oversized sweatshirt. I am committed to wearing more blue.
I wrote that in January 2021, when I first moved into the house I am currently in, the one I was prepared to move out of until a change of heart last week. I wrote it when the death of my grandmother was still raw and new and the opportunities of a life in a new city felt nonexistent. There is still no love in my heart for Richmond. I am still drinking Campari, though with mezcal in it. I still keep others habits and tics in my pocket like loose change, jingling Suzanne’s diet of bagels all day when I’m stressed against my grandfather’s penchant for a late night bowl of extremely cold cereal and milk; my own old habit of late night runs where my only companion was the wind. I like to try them on for size. See who I could be with just one small adjustment. It is the same impulse which drives all my saved real estate searches in cities to whom I will never belong. Who could I be there, and is she better than this version of me in a landlocked city along the midAtlantic? Who’s to say. But I try them on for size. Let’s say you do the same, or want to. Here are a few perfumes I wore as different people in different cities. Maybe one fits who you could become tomorrow.
Noir Exquis, by L’Artisan Parfumeur
You’re in a northern town where you desperately want to belong. You’ve brought a book from a classics list to the chicest coffee shop on Instagram. You don’t live nearby like you assume everyone else here does, so your car is parked a block away. The baristas are dressed in a mix of current fashions—black knits and loose linens—and flannels and mustaches that were on trend a decade ago. You order something that tastes burned and pretend it’s good. Instead of reading you write a poem on your phone. It’s not good yet and you know it. You’ve yet to learn how to write about what you haven’t lived. Around you the scent of baked chocolate hovers above tables like conversation. You text a screenshot of the poem to your friend and he asks if you’re flirting with him. You’ll consider that as an option if the city doesn’t get more interesting. A sun beam streams into the empty seat next to you, blinding the couple who attempts to sit down. You wordlessly wave to them to take your spot and stand to leave. You don’t know who you are but you think you know where you’re headed. It’s someplace to start.
You’ve moved half a dozen times and it will be at least two more before you accept you that you have to live with yourself no matter where you go. For now you are here, and here is where girlfriends are. Over guacamole, glasses of champagne, coffee, they ask questions like, “What do you want from your life?” and “How do you want to share it?” and you know how to answer now, because of the questions. You are learning all the names for things. Mine and yours and ours. Without dressing up in the possible metaphor you wear something made from a rose that blooms from stone.
Indochine, by Pierre Guillaume Paris, Parfumerie Générale
There are live oaks here but no palm trees. In your phone book is the number to the speakeasy that texts you when and where to show up. Wednesday, 10pm. You can bring one friend but they must recite a poem before the door with the code will be opened. The cocktails are served in pineapple juice cans and around the saxophone player a ring of smoke hangs. There are only 72 hours before you have to leave the country. The contents of your bag have turned out to be more interesting than the date you brought. (A metro card, a slim paperback, a lipstick with the wrong undertone.) The bartender in suspenders keeps the pineapple cans coming, and three different women stop to ask what perfume you are wearing. You give them both the name and the address of the only shop that carries it locally. We all deserve something that makes people follow us like wild dogs. Where you’re headed that’s the only kind there are.
Pelargonium, by Aedes de Venustas
You’re meeting someone you already know but you’re about to meet for the first time. It is very cold and you’ve worn the wrong shoes. Your hair is good though, and better yet, you know this. You take him to a bad bar masquerading as a good bar trying to seem like a bad bar. It is the place that most resonates with you. One day you’ll unpack that, but today you’re ready for new, different mistakes. You order a drink you have to explain to the bartender, which makes you look pretentious and also tastes bad. You cry when describing why you love this particular city. In each pocket is a perfume sample you carry like a talisman. When the someone goes to the washroom you open one at random and dab it on. You are about to make a memory. When you leave at 2am you’ll drive the wrong way down a one way tunnel and no one will stop you. One day you’ll unpack that, too.