Scented Quote of the Day, from Peter Altenberg:
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Perfume
"As a child, rummaging around in the drawers of my beloved, oh so beautiful Mama, the desk made of mahogany and cut glass, I found an empty perfume bottle which still retained the potent scent of an unidentified fragrance.
Many times I'd sneak over and sniff at it.
I associated this fragrance with all the love, tenderness, friendship, longing, sadness in the world. But for me all these feelings were bound up for me with my Mama. Later, fate fell unsuspected, like a horde of Huns and inflicted heavy losses all around (please read on.....)
And one day, I dashed from perfumery to perfumery hoping to possibly find in the little sample fragrance bottles the fragrance from the mahogany desk drawer of my late beloved Mama. And finally, finally, I found it: Peau d'Espagne, Pinaud, from Paris.
And I remembered the bygone days when Mama was the only womanly presence able to arouse pleasure and pain, ardent longing and deep despair, but who would always, always, forgive whatever I'd done and who fretted over me and perhaps even before falling asleep at night prayed for my happiness...
Later, many young women in their guileless sweet zeal sent me their favorite perfume to thank me from the heart for a beauty tip of my devising, namely that every perfume ought to be rubbed into the skin all over the naked body right after the bath so that it wafts forth like the body's own true natural essence! But all these perfumes were like the scents of breathtakingly beautiful but rather poisonous exotic flowers. Only the fragrance Peau d'Espagne, Pinaud, from Paris, brought me a melancholic tranquility, even though Mama was no longer there and could no longer forgive me for my sins!
Oh, that's lovely! Adn it reminds me: Some time ago I smelled Blue Grass again. And immediately I was transported into the big bed, mama in her beautiful black and green dress with devoré roses, smelling like a princess, bending over for a good night kiss, while daddy in his best suit hovered impatiently in the background, a babysitter settling down with the evening paper in the living room..... My mother wears other scents now, but Blue Grass is the one I identify with her most....
Beautiful! I love reading your scented quotes. They're inspirational! Anyway, when I smell Tresor I think of my Mama, it's what she always wears. I think my kids won't have one fragrance to remember me by as I can never stick to just one. Ha! So perhaps perfume in general will remind them of me.
Dinazad,
Thank you very much for sharing these fond memories of your Mama! You know, I need to smell Blue Grass:)
Flor,
This quote moved me quite a bit:) I think that it's an excellent point you bring up, that our children will be able to remember us otherwise, as linked to an indefinite cloud of perfumes:) My own son is very sensitive to smells and I don't know if that is not due in part to the influence of his surroundings:)
I realize that this is quite an old entry, but I did feel compelled to comment.
Youth Dew. That's what my grandma always wore. When she died the only thing I wanted from her house was her bottle of Youth Dew, which I have sitting next to my computer monitor with the rest of my beauty items. And occasionally I'll uncap it and smell it and I'll be reminded of when I was a child again, over at her house, laying on the floor on my stomach with her shih-tzu dog with her patiently combing my waist-length hair out.
I never really knew her for very long since my mother's family has always been strained but Youth Dew always reminds me of when she was in my life. I miss her.
Thank you for posting this. It's beautiful.