A BPAL scent and not-summer

[juushika]

I was lying down and petting Gillian, curled up by the window at the foot of my bed, and there was this lovely, spicy scent. Then I realized that we were right by my bookself, which is where I put the last BPAL scent I wore, a month or two ago: Inez (golden amber, vanilla musk, myrrh, cedar, carnation, and red sandalwood). Needless to say, I now have a spicy, honeyed scent. I haven't worn many scents lately; I go through phases with it, as all things. But the time away makes me more receptive when I return; I'm not tuning out the tendrils of scent, but rather keep catching them, that sweetness, that resinous base and dryness. I usually wear Morocco when it's warm and Inez when it's cold, as both are resinous carnations but Morocco is a lighter, thinner scent and Inez has a marshmallow thickness, more bodied and palpable, which can be cloying. But today, unseasonably warm but still spring, it suits.

I hate summer, I hate sun and heat, but I also try to live in each season as it comes—I like to be cold in the winter rather than blasting the heat, I consume media during the seasons in which they're set; as a result, the seasons develop atmospheres, associations, identities. I've gotten good at summer: fostering crossbreezes, turning off my computer tower, savoring the brief dark respite of night; summer and I have grown intimate. I don't look forward to it coming, but I'm so keenly aware of what it is that these warm days have a strange since of nostalgia. I can't convince my brain that knowing and not-quite-having something isn't necessarily the same as missing it!