Samsara Guerlain 1989 Eau de Parfum

I wonder what you'd say, Dad, if you knew you were in my review of Samsara? That you even play the main role in it, that is - next to me. And next to Samsara, of course.

Yet it's only logical, because it all started with you. On a Wednesday afternoon in November 1989, because on Wednesday afternoons you had closed the practice. You were with my mother in this tiny perfumery in Berchtesgaden, which no longer exists. I was there, I was fifteen and I was freezing. On the one hand, that was due to beauty, because you freeze with a mini and a belly, at least in November in Berchtesgaden. On the other hand, it was a matter of principle. It was always about principle with both of us, wasn't it?

You had this invisible corset around you that one wears when one comes from a Protestant parsonage: Beauty for you could only be endured with austerity, it was your antidote to any form of temptation: your churches Romanesque, your music the Bach fugues. My mother with her hair combed tightly from her forehead.

And on top of that, this daughter. I was a bird-of-paradise child, a monstrous splash of color in Your clearly ordered world, and because I knew it, and because I wanted it otherwise, every breath in Your presence was rebellion: I turned the volume knob on my boombox to full blast and let Richie Sambora's electric guitar screech into Your fugues. I wore the (Catholic) rosary around my neck and skirts that brought blushes to your face. You never entered my room again, because the topless Jon Bon Jovi hung like a larger-than-life defensive spell in such a way that you had to see him as soon as you walked in. Just like you should have seen a lot of things. But the thick layer of black kohl around my blue eyes blocked your view of the guilelessness behind them. You wanted to hold on to your little girl, and I wanted to force your recognition of my femininity.

You said, "How do you look again!" I pushed my lower lip forward and pulled my neckline down further. You said, "You're not leaving the house looking like that!" I threw my head back and left.

You know - sometimes I think we were both cold. Not just in November.

Anyway, that Wednesday afternoon you bought my mother a perfume, Givenchy III - it was always Givenchy III. She got the bottle and I got a little sample that said Samsara and Guerlain, neither of which I had ever heard of before.
I didn't try it until I got home, and I remember thinking, "This, this is exactly what women smell like."
Dad, I had no idea about fragrance pyramids back then. I just felt that I had to smell like that because I was a woman. Today I would say that it was because of this all-embracing, warm, tender sandalwood note that resolves every contradiction and puts a smiling exclamation mark behind all questions: behind the one for liveliness a very delicate squirt of lemon, like a crackling spark. Peach, tonka and vanilla behind sensuality. The elegance of iris, the extravagance of narcissus. The lascivious heaviness of jasmine. And in all so much innocence, Papa, like a bouquet of roses, violets and garden carnations. No, you can't smell all that. After all, that's what makes us women, that we're all of those things at once, never just one or the other. I didn't think about it at the time, but I guess I felt it.

I went downstairs with it, in the hallway I met you. Real close I walked past you, I wanted you to smell it on me. You stopped, "Wait a minute," you said. "What's that? What do you smell?" I pushed through the small of my back and lifted my chin. "It's the sample you gave me earlier," I said. "Samsara. From Guerlain." You smiled then and nodded. "It's beautiful," you said. "It suits you."

I don't know if you fully understood what you were saying yes to at the time. Not with your mind maybe, but maybe yes with your heart. And I know that from then on, I never froze.
I've been wearing samsara ever since. There have been breaks in all these years. But I've never lost sight of it. Some days I imagine it rising like a burnt offering up to You in the sky. That you smell it, and, now finally rid of your Protestant parsonage corset, smile. And therefore, and though I don't really like to commit myself, it is my signature.
I wear it for you
and for me.
I wear it for both of us
and forever,
Dad.