Aliven

Many articles, texts, stories and also reviews have the year 2020 and the pandemic in their prelude.
We were all in it, after all, and yes, it affected us all.

My life, my routine away from work consisted of movies on Wednesdays, going out to eat on Fridays, drinking coffee, cooking together and the gym.
Week in, week out. Stuck days. Everyday life.

And then there I sat, mid-March, and the routine ended. Suddenly.
Like in a book or a movie.
The world stood still.
People full of fear and worry, even more than usual.
I heard and read of terrible fates.
Uncertainty.
But also from the other side.
Of great stories. People who found themselves again.
Of dolphins in Venice. Clubhouse. Nature.
Together... somehow. All together.
For a moment at least.

And I was home.
A little bit alone. A little bit lonely.
Just me and Wauwau.
Went through cupboards, drawers and compartments.
Found mostly more than I wanted, including samples of scents from the last few years.
Oh, something new from the designer.
That can go.
Have I but for years nothing more found what I liked so that it would have gotten more attention with me.
Comes in the box at the family and friends may help themselves.
Not at all. Come on, once still try.
Libre by Yves Saint Laurent.
From the house I always kind of liked everything.
And Cinema sort of runs in my veins.
Libre, however, had not pleased me "then" when testing, "outside".
So incidentally quickly sprayed on the forearm.

Intense.
This small addition I have actually overread.
And if Libre Intense were a light, it would have blinded me at that moment like a spotlight in the dark of night.

What is that?
So warm.
So peaceful.
So beautiful it almost hurts?
So many memories without knowing each other? Like the best borrowed from different Guerlains I love.
So Emotional.
A hug, an intimate one, a tight one.
From someone you like.
Of love or of mum.
I am more than impressed. Instantly in love.

Where the regular version captures the walk in the fresh, springtime colorful park, but was too fresh and bright for me,
the Intense version is the evening cuddling by the fireplace. More warmth, less tangy. More elegant, not so cheeky.
More beautiful instead of more modern.
More intentional than accidental.
Sort of.

That time, which was actually once again
was bad, that showed me what I could change, also made me see things that need to stay that way because they are good the way they are.
Which people are rightly with me, in my life, my heart and in my memories.
This time has also proven to me again what a fragrance can do. I don't want to talk about power but when my emotional world is manipulated one way or the other, I am amazed and in this case also grateful.
These few sprays have done me good.
Changed my mood.
Made me feel embraced.
Made the moment better.
Yet it's just a fragrance... yes, it's that simple in the end.

Of course, it went straight to me and when Cinema has gone, Libre Intense will stay for a long time.
I hope so.
Ok? - and woe is me if he doesn't, Mr Laurent.

The beach white and fine.
The water shallow and transparent, shimmering turquoise in the distance.
Through the glass floor always flickering on the walls.
The flowers colorful.
Just under 30 degrees.
Snow in Germany, summer in the Maldives.

I, on the way to the boat, which should bring us to dinner on the other island.

My hair was a little wild from the beach. Salt water. Sand. Wind.
Half pinned up with the golden clip.
Matching the golden jewelry.
The shell bracelet.
What had I entered then, Greek goddess? Summer dress +island?
Probably something like that.
The dress was white, a little too long.
Asymmetrical at the top, with a slit down the side.
A bias in the form of flowing, light fabric.
Unwearable for the city, yet perfect for that dream of a place.
This island, like the clichéd description of paradise.

I was a bit sticky.
A little burnt, reddened, despite my conscientious sunscreen routine.
Body lotion and Bronze Goddess.

How good to feel here.
How fake everything seems. How much you enjoy these 10 days and soak up.

A hard cut into a very different life, many years later.
The world is struggling with a pandemic.
I sit at home and open the package.
Previously unnoticed, now just blind ordered.
I spray three times and...
Burnt skin. Sunscreen. Perfume.
A little stale floral water.
Jasmine and coconut milk.

For a blink of an eye, I'm back.
Standing there on jetty, my dress fluttering in slow motion in the evening breeze.



You stay. You don't become a daily companion.
Are you original, unique, something to be had? I don't know.
For me, you'll close your eyes... once in a while.
Bittersweet Memories. Thank you.

I have an appointment today.
With Tom.
Tom has been my trusted man for 20 years.
Tom is a dentist.
And I like to go to Tom.
So I walk up the stairs to the dentist's office.
Already here it meets me, this special smell. A little taste at least.
Oh, I may go right through and take a seat.
Take a deep breath.
Take a deep sniff of my wrist.
Indeed. Similarity. I knew it.
Somehow not so tangible, more like a feeling.

There's the cotton candy I'm still quickly snacking on in the dentist's chair.
Sweet, then.
But kind of dry. Does that make sense?
But there's also the hairspray, the smell of which gets mixed in.
Actually only noticeable at that moment, when the hair moves.
Kind of metallic? Yes.
Iodine.
The other one is what, saffron?
I read that, I know it, but I don't know what it smells like. But I like it.
What I actually detect is jasmine and the spicy of cedar.
My girlfriend doesn't smell that at all.
My husband is thinking hospital. But one in Hawaii, where he stepped badly in the shell. He doesn't like that.

So what kind of mix?! Great!
And for me, it's memories.
Positive, thankfully!
If I was panicking about the dentist, I'd probably have a piece of trauma in my hand with that bottle.
Wow.

Then we have the other thing, the often praised durability.
I smell him unfortunately not longer than 5 minutes.
I notice it when I spray it on.
Strong. Not acrid but in the direction.
Appears with the movement.
At the very specific smell.
And then, disappears.
Remains only a hunch.
With the others, however, he arrives.
I receive both compliments and the typical questions.
And actually often and even after 10 hours.
So his reputation is well deserved and rightly so!

So it remains for me to say, I love Baccarat.
This being different.
For I feel him to be different.
I perceive him as weird - but positively weird.
Rather a touch more feminine to me.
Have him but also unfortunately never been allowed to smell a man.

This mixture of curiosity and inspiration.
Great!
Only, she just doesn't like to stay with me.
Am I sad about that? Oh, well.
Some things are just the way they are.

Now what? ...let's see what the Extrait so can.

Just imagine, there is a place you know where, there they give you a smile and so.
Just good, at Mc Donalds it's just good... especially with grandma!

If you've got pictures in front of you now, you're smiling a little, at least silently to yourself, aren't you?
And who now thinks "is she crazy?"
Yes, is first of all right and is but, probably, simply also still too young.

Sleeping at grandma's on Friday nights.
Saturday morning with her into town.
To the boring big market, with way too many people.
Sometimes, actually always - but we tell no one, it went afterwards still to Karstadt in the toy department...
hach, mermaid Barbie with the turquoise fin skirt...

And then just Mc Donalds and its junior cone, which usually closed things out.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, either I sit today in the marketing department of the golden M's or I have spilled at that time, the perfume sample slipped to me by the saleswoman, in the sweet little bottle, of which grandma has re-bought the big bottle, on the brown plastic tray lined with paper advertising.

The fries have never been so inedible, because I actually gave them another quick taste.

And today, my goodness, actually over 30 years later, I'm that girl for a second every time I run into a woman wearing Shalimar.
Or when I walk past a toy department and sometimes still feel drawn to all the brightly colored packaging.
And when looking at the bronze fish embedded in the ground, in the city centre.

At the one bench by the water, our "one more ice cream" bench I no longer like to sit on but always stop short, put my hand on the old wood and look once into the distance.

And actually at that one fast food restaurant too. Always.
Well, so simple it is then just sometimes, if one can allow it then and also likes.

The perfume, the scent is great.
I really like its power!
But I couldn't wear it, because it already belongs to someone else.

And, I miss you grandma.

You don't belong to me at all.
You belonged to someone else. Someone who carried you every day. Basically in every situation. I guess that's called signature scent.

When I first met you, him, you, I became skeptical.
Weed? Marijuana? Did this guy just smoke a joint?
No, he didn't. You did!
Nobody else noticed but me, though.
I still find that thought funny today
You were strong. Full of metal and wood and hugging and holding on with a flower in your hand.
And you stayed, even after he had gone.
Sometimes days.
Sometimes nights.
Once I found a T-shirt behind the sofa. It must have been there for 10 days.
You were still there.
Came to stay - like the one whose skin you were glued to.

I don't always like you, alone or on me.
But on him - it seems to be the mixture. A good team.

Even if someone else has changed worlds, and a little life has passed in the meantime, you're still there, in that drawer.
And sometimes I spray you on an old teddy.
Or on his leather jacket, still hanging in the closet.
And it's not so bad anymore.
You will forever be his, as he will forever be mine.