dimanche 9 janvier 2011

Back from Canada (or why perfume is my chosen country)



The first person to grope my body in 2011 was a blonde with a ponytail. The fact that she was in uniform didn’t make the experience any sexier. I’d been selected for a random screening while passing through security at Montreal’s Trudeau airport on my way back to Paris. I declined to go through their newly-installed microwave oven, not out of modesty but because I object to being put through a scanner whose long-term effects on health are untested and unknown. So: enhanced pat-down. At least they didn’t make me pull out the little hand-labeled vial jostling against my Ventolin in my regulation Ziploc bag. I’d have ditched the asthma medication before I consigned those few drops to the bin overflowing with half-squeezed toothpaste tubes and tubs of peanut butter: in the throat-catching, scent-deadening Canadian cold, perfume has always been my Ventolin. 

When I pace the icy sidewalks of Ottawa just to stretch my legs – from my parents’ apartment complex, there is nowhere to walk to that isn’t a neon-lit box selling the same things you can buy anywhere in North America – I tuck my nose in the collar of my fur coat, drenched in Encens Flamboyant or Avignon. I tend to take incense fragrances to Canada in winter, not because of their religious connotation (though baptized a Catholic, I only set foot in churches for the art) but because their dry, burnt quality is the mineral answer to the white nothingness of snow. I spray them on outside and only on my coat, since my father proclaimed long ago perfumes gave him headaches.  

As usual, I’ve carried a Tupperware box full of samples during my Christmas holiday in the hope of writing a few reviews but my father isn’t feeling too well so I refrain from testing them: the cacophonous wafts of several blotters would filter from under my bedroom door. My little puffs of Avignon and Encens Flamboyant – so unlike “perfume” I’m hoping my dad won’t read them as such -- remain my only, tenuous links to the oldest scents of the Old World. 

All through my stay, as I prattled on about the blog and the London course and the book, my mother kept asking me: “Why perfume? You always liked it, but there were many other things you were interested in you could have chosen to write about.”
I could have answered each tiny puff of beauty was my stand against the ever-more-standardized world of shopping malls and big-box stores where I’ve chosen not to live; the essences of flowers, spices and woods grown in warmer climes a protest against the four-month-long winters of my youth. I could have said that I was drenching myself in sweet scents for all the times she’s snuck a spritz of Sublime on a Kleenex and tucked it under her pillow, ever the daughter rebelling against the Law of the Father. I could have said perfume was the language of my chosen country; that in many ways it is my chosen country, invisible and borderless, and that this is the reason I need to learn its language.
I didn’t. Some things are best written, not said – and I know one person in Québec, my aunt Sylvia, named after the Schubert lied by my music-loving grandfather, who will be reading this, and who will understand. She speaks the language.


50 commentaires:

  1. Beautiful post to begin a new year.

    (And, of course, I am reminded to prepare myself with incense perfumes if ever I move to a land of harsh winters.)

    Happy new year,
    Gretchen

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  2. Thank you Gretchen. I find incense fragrances come into their own in the blistering cold. With furs, they are the only thing that consoles me from braving winter. But then, this winter, I've lived through snowstorms in both Paris and London so there seems to be no escape!

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  3. Its not the subject nor the post it's always the writer that moves. Some writers can make the subject of peeling a potatoe poetry. It's a wonderfull gift, Denyse, so write about whatever we enjoy it anyway, your mother needn't worry.
    How awfull that it had to be a blond pony-tailed woman, no handsome dark men in uniform around as you refused to be grilled? Just kidding, glad you're back!

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  4. Illdone, true, blondes in whatever coiffure usually fail to... push my button. I must say she was very courteous about the business, though. I'm actually a lot more nervous when I go through security on the Eurostar because I'm carrying about 200 tiny vials for my London perfume course: I'm terrified they'll get confiscated! I've had to explain a couple of times what it is I do with that stuff...

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  5. Dual citizen of France and the US, I feel more like a citizen of the world - no particular attachment, I actually very much dislike any blind patriotic displays. Perfume as my chosen country...if it's by Mathile Laurent or Serge Lutens...by extension, makeup by Serge Lutens, haute couture by Franck Sorbier, Chopin by Alfred Cortot...;-)
    Serge Noire and L'Heure Mysterieuse are my favorite incense fragrances.

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  6. It's odd to think that the thing that moves and consumes us so much is pretty meaningless to other people. But that's all right, I guess. The world would probably be an unbearable place if we were all perfume fanatics!

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  7. Touching description of privilege - living in a world of one's choice and making. Such a beautiful world - of sensory bliss and occasional transcendence.

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  8. Uella, I'm not much of a patriot either... though very much a Parisian and more at ease in the cities of the Old World, cities that can be walked (Montreal and New York are of course such cities too). I wore Serge Noire this week to segue, while taking my LCF students for a visit to the Palais Royal. And L'Heure Mystérieuse I've got a full bottle of -- though it's so potent it'll take years to work through. It's a wonderful winter scent.

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  9. Persolaise, I can't say I was raised by an anti-perfume fanatic, that would be an exageration, but perfume was certainly unwelcome in my home, which never stopped me from giving some to my mother most years...

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  10. Starscent, privilege indeed -- that of living in the city of my choice, and, at least some of the time, in the world of my choice within that city. I try to remind myself of that as often as possible. But what's wonderful is that this invisible world can be bottled and travel anywhere on the planet...

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  11. I was patted down in an enhanced manner when flying to Canada recently. It was before the whole thing became public news on internet, and I had no idea why I was searched so thoroughly. However, I did not think much about it, because the agents were so much more professional than their US counterparts and traveling in India and the Middle East, I am used to being searched this way. There it is done in lady's only zones, very professionally and quickly. One time, I was flying from Mumbai to Kochi in the south, and I was searched by a young female agent. I was wearing my mangalsutra necklace, which is a western Indian equivalent of a wedding ring. Since I was a newlywed, my mangalsutra was worn in a reversed fashion, so when the lady saw it, she understood and she gave me a big smile. So, we stood there, just two women, not officer and passenger, smiling at each other.

    Above all, D, I am so sorry to hear news of your father not feeling well. I hope that he is ok.

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  12. Victoria, I can confirm that the staff at the Montreal airport was professional and courteous, though I rather miss the days when Canadian customs officers actually made me welcome in my home country when I arrived (now they seem interested mainly in whether I'm smuggling foie gras).
    Still, I'd rather risk being mauled by a stranger than put through those scanners, and it's a little form of passive resistance towards the TSA-style security measures... but I'll get off my soapbox right now. Let's just say the human touch allows for human stories like the one you tell!
    Thank you for your concern, my dad's condition is more annoying than serious, recurrent inner ear problems that give him dizzy spells and nausea now and then. Which, understandably, made me avoid using perfume in his presence when he was feeling ill (anyone, not only my perfume-averse father, would feel queasy in those cases).

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  13. Welcome home...suffering in silence is one thing , but scent free ? That would be torture !
    I think I'll go put on some Avignon...

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  14. Carol, it's actually not a bad thing to take a little break from perfume... At least I found that in my case, because I tend to kick into analytical mode if I apply anything that's not thoroughly familiar, it was a welcome rest for my brain...

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  15. A beautiful post! You are such a lovely writer.

    It’s true that perfume can become an everchanging citizenship, not unlike how people walk around with music glued to the inside of their ears all the time, a personal soundtrack.
    They select their reality via a flick of the ipod screen or whatever rather than a spray or dab from a vial.
    Difference is that with perfume, you don’t have to block anything out in exchange – instead you join the conversation of the street, the people, you add another voice (beautiful or storied or interesting) to the mix, which I think is more civilized. It’s a conversation.

    (And yes, Perfume + Paris, Montreal, New York = Passport from heaven.)

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  16. From a fellow countryman... Canada and perfume... this post kept me smiling from beginning to end. I love the part about your parents wondering... why perfume? Why not perfume? Welcome home!

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  17. Lovely sentiments about the border-free space that is Perfume. Very uplifting to think so.

    Here's to the New Alliance!

    cheerio, Anna in Edinburgh

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  18. Anna-Lyssa, I never thought of music vs. perfume that way, but you're right, they're very different ways of carrying beauty along with us... Mind you, the communicative nature of perfume is precisely what made old Immanuel Kant grumble that smell was the least sociable of senses because you imposed it on others.

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  19. Normand, I do often get asked the question... But it takes on a special meaning considering the place perfume held in our family as a quasi-forbidden substance. Not inferring anything about Canada and Canadians (even though... Halifax...)

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  20. Anna, I love it that it's a bit a beauty and language so many of us can share -- at least, wherever there's a post office and sufficient funds! Mind you, the same can be said about all the arts, but the invisible, abstract nature of perfume makes it a bit more magical.

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  21. Oh, this was beautiful to read - and at the same time, rather poignant, too! As the result of a mid-Atlantic plane crash myself (in a manner of speaking), like you, I chose my own country. It's wherever I'm happy in the moment! ;-)

    I'm sorry you had to go through all that just to go home, but I'm also glad you had a little incense to console you! And of course, even happier that you're back!

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  22. Tarleisio, I didn't mention the 5 hours wait in the plane on the tarmac at Roissy on December 23rd, next to a howling colicky infant!
    As you must know, there is a peculiar type of pain (guilt?) that lifelong expats must contend with. Paris comes at a cost.

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  23. What a moving and melancholy post, D, really a pleasure to read on a cold day in my Old World house in the middle of the blazingly new world I still call home in 2011. It's been particularly chilly this season, and I'm having trouble finding suitable perfumes that waft around me, they stay so much closer in this weather. I'll steal into the BF's stash of Avignon tonight. My Dad has the same annoying ailment, but it doesn't interfere with our perfume usage around him, phew! Welcome back to your chosen home, and happy new year! XXX

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  24. carmencanada, my decant of L'Heure Mysterieuse will also last a lifetime. While everybody was getting ready for another winter storm I was wearing Serge Lutens Chypre Rouge this afternoon while shopping at Bloomingdale's where I treated myself to a coat by Gerard Darel...it's sad, but that's how I cope with everything LOL

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  25. Yes, it's weird belonging to 2 countries, or several in my case....It's always sort of hilarious when someone asks me, "So where are you from?" Of course, they usually have no idea why I'm laughing and probably find my response, "Earth," rather flippant.... I find tropical scents most comforting since those are the places/countries in which I've been happiest, and hope to return to, so maybe your Catholic roots run deep after all, at least, the beautiful frankincense?? Avignon certainly speaks to the Western Church (and its creator is from a similar background).
    Cheers,
    Marla

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  26. Happy New Year to you too Wendy! My dad's perfume aversion goes way back before his ailment. Hard to know whether it's hyperosmia or a learned aversion... But at his age he won't change. Though he's respectful enough never to ask me to refrain from applying when I'm there...

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  27. Uella, beautiful things are definitely the best way to cope with the hardships of winter! That and warm coats!

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  28. Marla, when I was a little girl my mother used to sing Josephine Baker's song to me, the one that goes "J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris" (I have two loves, my country in Paris), so she may have programmed me to pick my future home... But in the end, as a species, we're all just Africans who've wandered far astray, aren't we?
    As for incense, the memory goes so far back into the history of humanity in so many cultures it may well be burned into our genes. Unlike some people, I don't have emotional childhood memories associated with Catholic incense, though it's possible it just goes very far back: my most intense recollections are from the adult age. Seville, Rome and... Avignon, in fact, the city of the Popes. But my activities there were somewhat less than Catholic.

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  29. Ha ha! I love Avignon as well, but I was a good girl there.... I agree with you, frankincense does come from Africa, and may well be burnt into our genes at this point.
    -Marla

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  30. Verrrrrry innnnnnteresting, I wouldn't be surprised if his perfume aversion spurred you on!

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  31. Marla, how long was it between the time our faraway ancestors learned to make fire and the time they found out some things smelled better when burned? We'll never know...

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  32. Wendy, yup, that's the explanation I use when I want to go quickly. Of course it's never that simple.

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  33. This was such a lovely post, D. And welcome back.

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  34. Thanks March. I'm a little slow getting back to reviews, first because I've had a pretty nasty flu (sniffer all right, but so much fever I just lay in bed in a pool of sweat), second because I've been enjoying a couple of things I already wrote up. Getting back to the reason I love perfume, you know? The pleasure.

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  35. My sister and I were traveling recently, and she was searched. That happens often to her. She decided that it's because she wears skirts. (She has had back surgery and can't abide waistbands.) I sailed through, wearing jeans and a snug T-shirt.

    But, I agree, no bizarre X-rays for me.

    Hope that you are having a great visit.

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  36. Lovely post. Beauty is so hard to find these days, I turn to perfume. I think of Carla Bruni's song Raphael, she sings something like, "pour que ma journee soit belle, je me parfume a Raphael". Perfume in the morning brings beauty to my day too. I just don't understand why most people's eyes glaze over when I talk about perfume. The beauty they are missing! (And now you've got me determined to finally buy Messe de Minuit since we're leaving Hamburg for snowy Pennsylvania soon!)

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  37. Sunnlitt, I wore a loose sweater -- travelling for over 16 hours door-to-door in anything tight isn't my idea of bliss. But then, that's why God created Lycra, right? Maybe in the near future they'll issue catsuits to us so all the bumps show...

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  38. Carla, I've *seen* Raphaël, and heard him. Clever fellow, a little more presentable than his successor... People's eyes glaze over because they've never given much thought to the matter though they might perceive the beauty as well -- I guess all the geeks, in any field, have had that reaction at some point speaking about their passion, though I still can understand most TV producers' and publishers' reaction when they say "perfume is a niche interest". I mean, who *doesn't* wear it?

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  39. I think you're referring to a philosophical TV or radio show Enthoven presented? I haven't lived in France since 1999... But wait, if everyone wears perfume, why is it a niche interest? Sorry, I'm not clear on your second comment! Thanks!

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  40. Carla, on TV, on the radio and in person (we have common friends).
    As for the second comment, I'm only repeated what I've heard TV and publishing people say: that perfume is a "niche" topic that can't interest the mainstream public. Even though almost everyone wears some sort of fragrance. Just pointing out the contradiction.

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  41. Got it. Well, everyone eats, but just like many wear perfume just because they think they're supposed to, without paying full attention to their scent, many eat without paying full attention to the taste of their food. It's a discipline to focus on your senses, but it has such a reward!

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  42. Hello, dear Denyse. I'm sorry I keep coming to your wonderful blog posts late. But just wanted to say (as follow Canadian and fellow citizen of Perfumia), this was beautiful and moving to read. Simultaneously wonderful, to know that we are linked by our appreciation for beauty in all its forms, but also a bit sad, to realize that we can never really go back home. I had this realization with my family recently, and saw that my interests and passions had taken me far and wide, into strange lands beyond their imaginations, and changed me into something almost unrecognizable to them.

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  43. Jarvis, I can't imagine that's not a story shared by millions of people... ever since people started moving to "the big city". Probably Ancient Rome, at least.
    There *is* something sweet and moving about parents being puzzled at what they wrought... and something heroic in their gracious acceptance of it.

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  44. Food shows are easy, like the latest "it" perfume at Sephora (another sweet patchouli). Really tasting and thinking about every morsel is not so easy. That's a Lutens. No need to reply!

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  45. "I could have answered each tiny puff of beauty was my stand against the ever-more-standardized world of shopping malls and big-box stores where I’ve chosen not to live;..."

    I just love that! Beautifully written post, D. Thank you!

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  46. I believe the earliest written record of its use is from the time of Queen/Pharoah Hatshepsut, around the 1460s BC, with her famous expedition to the Land of Punt, but you know it was used long before that, probably started when a Cro Magnon or Neanderthal family threw some resinous sticks on the fire, and it smelled really good (and calmed them down, too!)
    -Marla

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  47. Rappleyea, thank you! Marla: it's quite likely... Maybe some day paleontologist will find a trace of that fire... Resin must outlast a lot of things.

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  48. «But what's wonderful is that this invisible world can be bottled and travel anywhere on the planet...» ah, perfume (like Paris) being a moveable feast. :-) So apt!

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  49. Tara, a moveable feast, exactly... Think of all the bottles and decants moving around the planet at this very moment!

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