New Perfume

I bought a new perfume today.

I didn’t have much else to do and like the typical female that I am, I decided to go shopping. Truth is, I don’t really need anything and I’m on a minimalist kick since the New Year. Therefore, I limited myself to one item and took out £50 (this was to include a grande caramel macchiato). These days, Starbucks is a special treat- this is due to the 30% increase in prices in the U.K- damn the dollar...

After breezing through a few bookstores and the specialty health food shop (I’m into vitamins lately as well), I wound up at the perfume counter in the local department store.
An hour must have passed before I realized that I had about 20 distinct Eau De Toilettes distributed over every inch of my exposed skin and my mind had wandered to the past and back...

A new perfume is like foreshadowing a period of events- a tiny unidentifiable glimpse- not into the future, but into the future's future- like into a memory of the future, if you will.
The perfumes I have worn throughout my late-teenage, early-adult life have always attached themselves as identifiers of those periods;

Yohji Yammomoto: driving to South Beach in one of my friends BMW convertibles (their parents always loved them more than mine loved me) at 17 with a shoddy ID stating I was 21. I thought I was so old and wise- like life didn't exist beyond the velvet ropes and watered down vodka tonics.

Hanae Mori: Senior year of University. I was finally dating the guy I had lusted after since Freshman year. I was skinny again after three years of carrying around the freshman 15(x3!), and I was actually enjoying the classes I was taking. Who knew literary theory was fun? I lived in a studio apartment, I was hot, my parents paid for everything and I had no idea how many times my heart would break in the next five years.

Carolina Herrera 212: The Ponte Vecchio, my first love, a year in the most beautiful city in the world, pasta, watching the World Trade Center crumble on a tiny TV in an Italian bar and wondering if the world would ever be the same again.

Dolce & Gabbana, BY: My first year in New York. The upper east side, Sunday brunches in the West Village, Bentleys, private jets and shoes from Jeffrey’s. Ask me again, why did I leave?
I decided as an homage to the current changes in my life, I would treat myself to a new perfume- A new memory.

I bought Kenzo Amour (because I like it AND because the shape is perfect to stick in a shoe when I pack for my next destination.)

I couldn’t stop smelling the back of my wrist, even as I was paying at the counter.
Now, sitting at my laptop, trying to think of the most interesting part of my monotonous day, I am still smelling myself every few minutes. I’m trying to familiarize myself with the new perfume- I’m attempting to make it mine- to identify with it.
And with time, I will.

I already know that Kenzo Amour, in its vivid fuchsia bottle, will forever be a reminder of now- and what is to come;

I know that 20 years from now, I will get a whiff of it on someone else's wrist and I will miss today.

I’ll probably buy another bottle of it at some point in the future (if it's still on the market, of course). I’ll close my eyes, inhale, and vividly remember these days- And I’ll miss them.