It has been a turbulent year. Most of my close friends have had extreme stress – deaths in the family, work issues, relationship strife, health problems, house disasters- and that’s before you even start thinking about the violent flux that has been the world, which no one in their right mind could consider calm or stable. The Year Of The Dragon was certainly energetic, Jesus – but it was more than many of us could handle. I myself have had a rather tumultuous time, not on an even keel, very up and down – my sudden announcement in the early summer that I needed to be off work for my knee troubles never mind the students and their exam success was considered blasphemy in my organization, with my roiling up the schedules and student prognostica in boulders of rocketing magma thrown with abandonment like Donald Trump: oh impulsive Sagittarius, can’t you think things through more?; I acquiesced, agreed to have surgery later, but the seas have never quite become as calm or waveless as I would have liked in the time since (bring on the Christmas and New Year Holiday…I just need to be outside of a super organized and obedient Japanese administrative structure for a few minutes.)
In the annals of human history, I wonder how 2024 will be rated by the scholars. War, Regime change, drastic political lurchings, freak weather systems, but no one has the energy to think about ‘the environment’ any more with everything else going on even though that is all we really have…. (a Netflix documentary on the waste that Amazon and other greedy megaliths cause on a daily basis almost pushed me over the edge when I was bombarded with all the commercial Christmas crap yesterday in Yokohama station…..all these things that we just don’t need….it actually brought on a headache.) But, like everyone else, I am just dragged along on the inevitable tide; this is the stupid society we have chosen, the way of life that is deemed to be normal, and there’s nothing I can do personally about it so let’s just crack open another beer.
This has definitely been a transitional year. I have been tempestuous – the global atmosphere itself so full of upheavals and strife that even if all were perfect in my life it would be impossible to find real serenity in any case, never inured or cut off from my surroundings as some people choose to be , but there have definitely been positives in 2024 that I am very grateful for. In some ways this has been a year of (re)connection. Me and D are super happy. So many nice experiences together. My family and I, after a difficult period, are back on track and I really look forward to seeing them again in the spring back in the UK if we can. Yes, there have been some bust ups with friends here in Japan when I have gone off the boil because my nervous system is sometimes so overwhelmed with all the various stimuli that I can’t quite nail social interactions. But real friends are real friends and we smooth out the wrinkles and keep going (thanks Melanie, Yoichi and Yukichi and others).
Another excellent development in the last academic yearhas been my relationship with my Japanese colleagues in the English department. For seven years, I was cast out into a wilderness of isolation because of my inability to connect with another foreign teacher that joined the company with whom I shared mutual toxicity, bizarre because I liked him in many ways and he me, but the other’s presence made our hairs stand on end and hearts beat fast in absolute phobic rejection of each other to the extent that in the end it was agreed by the powers that be we couldn’t be in the same building (he once told me that often, when I entered the room, the coldness of my eyes spread through the room like poisonous ice fog and gave everyone the chills; an observation I have never quite recovered from (I wrote about this rather vividly in my strange piece on The Caucasian in Japan, Replicants if you fancy indulging in yet more psychodrama). The upshot of all this, anyway -sorry Mandy Aftel, I always end up dragging myself too much into perfume reviews, don’t I? What a narcissist! Who cares about your work dynamic, the readers exasperate, just tell us about the mthfckng perfume..). All in good time, children, all in good time-
no, the disastrous result of all this co-worker neurosis for me personally was that because it was agreed by the kamisamatachi gods upstairs be that we couldn’t possibly work together any more, I ended up not working with the English teachers, but rather only with the very foreigner-shy maths and science teachers, or the even more elusive Japanese language and Social Studies teachers, with whom I barely exchanged a word : often just a heavy lidded closed off Edvard Munch character in a unpeopled, miserable vista.
Then, o jubilation – the other ultrasensitive person in question mercifully left at the end of last year- suddenly, to everyone’s amazement, I could have sworn he was going to stay for life with his ho ho ho Santa ‘gregariousness’ – and though I genuinely wish him well, I can’t deny that his departure hasn’t helped enormously in my day to day interactions. Now that I mainly work with the English teachers, as well as the odd friendly biology and economics teacher who I get along perfectly well with, I can actually relax in the teachers’ room : I finally feel like part of a team. We all like each other. There is never any aggro, unpleasantness, sarcasm, personality clashes – it is always calm and genteel. One new teacher who joined in the spring ostentatiously loves tea, and is often brewing this or that high end blend and pouring it out in paper cups for everyone, something I find rather charming, so the other day I decided on an impulse to give him some of my favourite tea on earth, Vietnamese tra sen -or lotus – a floral green tea I first tried in a very beautiful and dreamy situation in Hanoi and whose flavour and smell I still adore.
I wrote about this blissful drink in my Hypnosis of Lotus piece; I find the taste and aroma of tra sen to be both relaxing and mentally clarifying at the same time – it is also very enjoyable heavily diluted in a big 2L bottle of water and refrigerated and taken out for the day in hot summer weather – just so fragrant. Familiar, yet not, it smells a little like jasmine tea, but both more tangy and with gentle balsamic and vanillic undertones in the base. The tea connoisseur inhaled it from the packet and exhaled happily – he seemed delighted to have added it to his collection of upscale tea leaves he keeps in his desk draw and I imagine that the lotus will be doing the rounds in the teacher’s room when I go into the school tomorrow afternoon.
I have never smelled lotus oil, and especially not blue lotus oil, which sounds impossibly exotic but which is what natural perfume queen Mandy Aftel uses as the main opening accord of her new perfume Sacré Bleu. A quick online check tells me that the essence extracted from Egyptian blue lotus flowers is deeply calming, hypnotic – and apparently induces ‘lucid dreaming’. The dried and crushed flowers can also be smoked, like a joint (‘intoxicating’, ‘even hallucinatory’ according to some accounts), and Portia of Perfume Posse’s perfect review can tell you more about the olfactory development of this perfume in note by more detail – I can’t better it.
I will admit I found the composition initially confounding: what is this? D couldn’t quite get his head round it either. It was only when I honed in on the lotus in the opening and made the direct connection with the tea I know so well, the scent it emanates from the canister in concentration, that I could really smell the lotus if you know what I mean; with the florality of boronia there is also a definite black grape aroma, a fruity tang that then ingeniously melts into a really beautiful aged Mysore sandalwood essence melded over black tea: strangely addictive. This final accord in Sacre Bleu is the kind of real, deep rooted santal you want clinging to your winter cardigan as you potter about peacefully contemplating （or not, just trying to live in the moment,) I find it very comforting, especially in the superior extrait de parfum, where the sandalwood comes even more to the fore, as you knew it would. This feels grounding – but also opening. I will save my samples for days at home over the new year break, when I hope to take even more stock of things and work out ways to live more healthily next year. Another of the positives from 2024 has been the e-bike that the d got me in the summer; oh the liberation, how wonderful Kamakura has come back in reach again rather than the stuffy crush of suburban bus routes: the beauty of cycling down past Hachimangu Shrine on a sunny December morning with its now empty lotus pond, which in the height of summer will be full to the brim with lotus flowers opening on the surface of the water to the accompaniment of splashing koi carp, and herons.
But to open the question to the readership floor …
Has 2024 been fulfilling/relaxing for you personally, or have you also been tossed about like a tumble dried sock in the chaotic cyclone that is human existence?
If so, how do you regain your inner composure ? What is your personal lotus? What takes you to a more tranquil, serener space……?
Your post has taken me through a range of emotions one of which being anger at the wounding you suffered because of your co-worker – you were so brave to have continued under those circumstances, but I can’t begin to imagine the effect the stress must have had on you, mentally and physically. But you calmed me with the story of the sweet chap who shares his tea and your joy in the lotus.
This year has been momentous for me too, in all sorts of ways. The news sickens me and my blood pressure literally soars when I see the craziness, hate and inhumanity in the world. I find it difficult to escape the roar, but try to avoid the news now, and stroking our two cats helps, along with sitting quietly with the fire glowing and the candles flickering. I haven’t found the ideal tea yet, but strangely love an organic vegetable juice which includes beetroot, an ingredient said to help reduce blood pressure. And my perfume is FM’s Synthetic Jungle as the greenness brings me peace.
Take care.
Oh I do like Frédéric Malle‘s Synthetic Jungle (didn’t they rename it?). I, strangely, keep my bottle in the fridge, and I find an ice-cold spray of emerald green super energizing!
Yes I thought that I soon as I read Jilliecat’s comment. It made immediate sense. Like a dreamy and verdant protective barrier; nostalgic, but present.
Synthetic Jungle – a fantastically intuitive choice. It makes me want to get a bottle (so insanely expensive, though..)
Blood pressure – tell me about it. I get palpitations if I let myself over the tiniest issue so am trying to get a hold of that; beetroot too I adore, and made a really nice borscht at the weekend for that very reason. Love the colour and tanginess of it as well.
As for the co-worker issue. Yes. It was difficult. And yet it was strange, because the few times we did actually bump into each other for one reason or another, we were perfectly civil, and almost seemed to enjoy the conversation – no one watching from without would ever have guessed there was ever any friction.
I was saying to Duncan the other night; I have been working for thirty one years and although of course I haven’t always got on perfectly with everyone, this was the only case where there was such a problem at the cellular level – we just made each other feel really really nervous – both troubled individuals I suppose- that it became intolerable to be in the same room. Odd really. But it was as much my fault as his. I suppose I felt some kind of All About Eve encroachment; I had just been off from work for six months for the leg procedures I had before and he had arrived…maybe I felt threatened? Plus he spoke fluent Japanese and mine is crap, so there’s that. Plus, I had just got my Perfume publishing offer so thought I was the beez kneez and potentially out of there (yeah right) so was probably acting a bit diva-ish and loudmouthed.
But he was one of those goma goma painfully polite people who was desperate to be fully absorbed into the company because I don’t think he really had many people outside but he tended to express himself in excitement about trivia – historical, geographical, whereas I couldn’t give a shit about the origin of this or that cheese and express myself in stark emotional terms that a lot of people just can’t deal with – hence the potent ice fog eyes of death he was referring to; I don’t have the best politeness filter, though living here so long has certainly conferred one on me.
Anyway, thanks for your considered response to this rather overwrought post, and I hope 2025 is better for you and for all of us. You never know – it might be.
The famous auction site which presented me with your book also provided a bottle of Synthetic Jungle at a very reasonable price; risky, I know, but it is perfect.
You are an extremely sensitive person and I am not surprised that you were affected so horrendously by the situation; I can’t help wondering if reincarnation is a fact and if you two might have been enemies in a former life ….. but the sensible part of me (not a very big part!) recognises that from time to time one just happens to meet someone who makes one’s hackles rise and has a very negative influence. I know, cos I have come across my nemesis.
So, keep calm and heal. Carry on posting on whatever subject you wish to write as I am always interested in what you say, whether it is about perfume or not. I have bought some lotus flower tea as you describe it so appealingly.
And yes, here’s hoping for better things in 2025, although my heart breaks for all those who already know that is not going to happen.
But there is always hope …….
Oh yes, 2024 was very challenging, with stress and illness and accidents and death and so much going on in the world as well – we will be glad to see the back of it! But the year is ending on a positive note – my partner has just handed in her notice from her extraordinarily stressful job in the NHS and I have discovered abstract painting, which brings me much joy and time out of mind.
So glad things are looking up for you as well – Joyeux Noel! x
Glad to hear the good news that is happening now at the end of the year: I salute NHS workers sincerely and deeply but can imagine how stressful it could be (except that I CAN’T actually imagine….probably beyond what is endurable a lot of the time). Hats off though.
And abstract painting…..I hope you go deeper and deeper into it and it alleviates much of the maelstrom. I think I am going to do the same with the piano next year, to just try and get into that state of flow that can be so precious.
It’s been SO personally tumultuous and challenging that I had everyone in our family tie on red kabbalah strings a few months ago to guard against the omnipresent evil eye. I’ve also started burning esfand and smudging with home grown white sage (honor the environment and its original stewards). I was never one to believe in superstition, but this year has changed my mind.
Blue lotus sounds transporting. Knowing that it thrives and blossoms out of the muck makes it the perfect symbol for the coming year.
What a great way of putting it.
May next year be entirely different for you x
2024 is finishing at a low ebb. My DH’s sarcoma has returned & isn’t operable. The treatment options are limited, with the aim being to hold the growth of the tumours. Median overall survival is not promising.
The world as a whole may be about to hit an all time low. Personally, my shower if shite has just commenced
I’m sorry to read this, Alityke.
Dear Neil, Wow! What an EOY summary! FIRST & VITAL: PLEASE (!!!) speaking for myself, I found your blog because I love perfume, I stick with your blog because I care about you and your life. PLEASE don’t do “Black Narcissus Lite.” I don’t want your blog to be EdC I want it to be EXTRAIT strength. Brave of you to share and I appreciate it ALL. ¶ My year? If I look up at the word: overwrought, maelstrom, tumultuous, terrifying. OTOH, If I stick to the personal: my life as a grandma (five sons, their families) my life is as good as it gets. I try to remember that. Perfume and incense grounds me. Aloha, Lorna
Thanks very much for this. Admittedly, sometimes I feel like an eau fraiche version of myself is appropriate but on other days, yes – let’s do a potent extrait
Thanks for the vote of confidence and I hope 2025 is a great year for you
Mon tres cher monsieur Ginza
The canary in the coal mine was never asked to like his job! His task was to sing and to hell with the rest! And if his throat was sore or his wing was clipped? Downstairs with you mate!!
It has been a hell of a draconic year for you. Divaism and the striking of paws is in order. How does one survive after all? Really!! But your paw has velvet cushions as well, fortunately!
Because you brought me Blue Lotus! Thank you. Arrigato. Dank je van harte 💓. At a most appropriate moment. And you brought me to tears as well! A blessing.
Sacré Bleu sounds really intruiging and I think your very entertaining preamble is the perfect introduction. I know I’m drawn more to meditative perfumes these days than big statements.
I’m really glad to hear your work scenario has improved. I mean speaking as someone who’s probably unemployable these days (I’ve got so used to working freelance I’d probably have a nervous breakdown if I had towork in the same room as loads of people I barely know!) I’m deeply impressed with your fortitude and I’m glad it paid off in the end!
Likewise your family situation – wonderful to hear it’ smoothed out. I’ve been through plenty of those challenges so I totally feel your relief!
Speaking of challenges this year – one of the hardest things for me in 2024 (other than attending the funeral of an old school friend – a wonderful human being) was trying to find deeper creative expression.
These are violent times , as you say, and I wanted to explore my feelings about that with a series of paintings showing a group of people (myself, partner, friends and family) visiting the remains of an ancient friary, including the effigy of a 12th century crusader, on a beautiful summer’s day.
I think as an artist you have to go to the heart of dark and controversial things. The image of a crusader is very problematic, it says different things to different people. To me it says a thousand things – perhaps mainly the way we’re dragged in to war with the promise of ‘honour’. That courage and the attempt towards noble virtues can be used against us. No sane person seeks war with another country.
I lost a friend over a difference of opinion – the friend felt I shouldn’t depict a Christian building or a crusader in my theme. If there’s anything I hope for in new year it’s the capacity to explore another’s viewpoint before dismissing them.
Sorry for the long reply! Anyway I find love, creativity and nature (trees, sea etc!) healing, if I can have those things, and I do, life is good and I’m lucky.
Wishing you and D and all your family love, good health and prosperity for 2025!
This is more wonderful than you can imagine to read. YES to not being held back by Received Wisdom by a mentally fettered group ( could you possibly share the direct link to the paintings ?)
Very sorry to hear about your friend. I dread dread dread that happening though I know of course that it inevitably will
A very Happy New Year to you and yours
I know these things are arbitrary but they do give the chance for some kind of renewal
N x
A bit belatedly here’s a link to the paintings I talked about above – https://rosestrangartworks.com/gallery/
If you scroll down to the first two sets titled ‘First of June at the Forest of Luffness’ and ‘Effigy’ these are my efforts at painting the theme so far. I’m still working on it and many paintings have been abandoned and painted over. I had a far better response to the three recent ‘Luffness’ paintings (name of the wood where we found the effigy) and I think they begin to capture something of the tenderness of relationships about that day we all visited the place.
I have quite a way to go though, these are small, practice works while I find the right compositions etc.
Thanks for your interest Neil, as I mentioned in the other post, I’ve got a nasty cold so I’m bed-bound, surrounded by tissues, Olbas oil etc and enjoying a good read of your latest posts!
I REALLY love these forest paintings – they are like living beings.
I am no painter but I hope you keep these as they are (and do second versions instead – but I should just be quiet tbh )
Also straining to see where any possible ‘offense’ might lie?
Not sure if this will post twice….the message said “nonce verification failed”! I’m no nonce!
Since you asked how it’s been, it’s been a somewhat better year as some of the logistical challenges in the aftermath of my parents’ deaths two years ago abated (the emotional ones remain). I’m very glad to read that your work situation has improved—colleague things can be so very stressful.
Many of the usual things work for me – trees, skies, water, smells, my family, my dog. Celeriac and chestnuts, as well as tomatoes and pineapple and strawberries, seem to have magical properties – and licorice root is a staple. I’ve been holiday browsing lately as I felt a strong pull again to where I spent my summers as a child, the Swedish archipelago (east and west coasts). Bare rocks in flat seas and shorelines of pine and granite always do the trick, even in a photo; I just need to find the time to go there again, and even planning it is a balm of sorts.
Thank you for all your great posts in 2024, in which you describe essences so well—of perfumes, of people, of problems. With your wide range of topics you’re probably reaching people in many ways you can’t imagine; you’re brilliant unfettered. I do hope you continue.
I think of my parents, born in 1928, who went through wilder times still than these; yet they managed to live and indeed thrive. Simple pleasures for them were each other, sun, a walk, grapes, a baguette and cheese, a swim in the sea or a lake. If we’re not fighting for our lives or out on the streets protesting something, we can try to focus on the small things (when the big is too terrifying), to calm our circuits and recharge our batteries. If I were in Kamakura, I’d be in the temples all the time inhaling. Now I think I’m starting to talk rubbish, so I’ll just wish you a Merry Christmas and health and happiness for 2025.
No this all makes absolute sense and I am so grateful I live here in Kamakura. I am THOROUGHLY over Tokyo, and increasingly, Yokohama
Strawberries and pineapple have the same effect on me, btw – the fragrance taste and enzymes produce some kind of celestial awakening.
I am I bed with something bronchitis/ish – must send Duncan out to get both
Thanks for reading and may 2025 be enjoyable for you