The Black Narcissus

After months of intense industriousness during which time the house fell into a state of semi-squalour,  now the book is finished, D is insisting on a sprucing. Some of the perfume cabinets are in a parlous state of dust- crusted Ms Haversham, and so although my natural tendency in this utterly exhausted aftermath is to just lie about doing nothing except read about the state of the world in the New York Times or immerse myself mindlessly in Netflix (after six months of hardly watching anything, playing the piano or reading a single book), my other half is rightfully demanding we now set about restituting some dignity to my ramshackle collection of bottles, cleaning them one by one, shelf by shelf, over successive weekends.

I am so lazy by nature that I practically have to be dragged towards the perfume choked armoires with the wet cloths, but I must admit that my Vol De Nuit ensemble, which I keep next to my bed ( I found an EXQUISITE new boxed 14ml vintage extrait the other day which, with its ultra-powdered ambery vanilla iris dry down, took my love of this perfume to new heights of adoration ) now is something I can lie on my futon GAZING at, drawing power from its olfactory, visual, and artistic – almost SPIRITUAL – sheer beauty.

The main cabinets are still to be tackled – the ‘men’s section’ so dust-laden there might even be spider’s webs in there for all I know, but next weekend it will be time to de-dust all the Aramis, Azzaro, Givenchy Gentlemen and so on and so forth, the Chanels and Diors; plus the heady, sweet tropicalia of my white floral and coconut shelves.

When it is all done, I think I will be quite pleased to restore some order to it all, to know where certain perfumes ARE, for a start, because you can be sure that, with the dark clouds of fascism and bigoted hatred rising all around the world as we speak ( WHAT is going on?) sometimes you just need to retreat into dreams and sigh into your wrists; OR: embolden yourself with scented, inviolable armour………protections from all the  ugly brutality; gentle, incantations of unvisible artistry that are like sweet scented, sensuous buffers from the shock.

I need to leave the maelstrom of my life and just float about in places like this, or record shops, to leave the brain behind

Hello.

I just thought I would check in to this unfamiliar place seeing that I don’t at present have the time to come here anymore.

I am currently about 95% finished with the initial text for my perfume guide, which has been an incredibly demanding, new, thrilling, and exhausting experience that I don’t even know how much I can actually talk about ( for a person as fiercely independent, rebellious and difficult as myself all of this has been entirely unchartered territory :  I am having to learn to work as a ‘team person’ and relinquish control – for an aesthetic control freak a very difficult thing to do: there are demands, legal obligations, deadlines…. all while doing a pressurized teaching job).

Sometimes I watch the whole process from afar like some abstract performance art piece ( it is only very recently that I have actually realized it is all real): me as a commercial reality, sold in a shop rather than this malleable, deletable digital presence.

Life has changed immeasurably. We have no time to go anywhere or do anything else ( Duncan is helping me with it all and that aspect of the ‘process’ has been my favourite, even if the house has turned into a gay pigsty – see picture). It feels, a little, like having your head in a vice/vise,  and sometimes it has actually all been quite insanity inducing.

But even though I have overshot deadlines and possibly tried the patience of my publisher with my dillying and dallying, the main text will be finished by this weekend, and then the whole EDITING process will begin in which I have to willingly kill my own darlings ( the book, as it is now, is way too long to fit physical realities).

By November it should be done.  Just  to remind you, this is not The Black Narcissus attempts the ‘ Proustian novel ‘ but more like a luxurious ‘pop bijou’ to be read in the toilet : a book with bite sized reviews for the perfume newbie as much as the confirmed perfumist. I have no idea how it will be received ( it comes out March 21st – title still not decided (!))and we will see then if anyone buys it : there will be events in London : perhaps I can meet you at one of them? but I am just riding the wave right now to see where it takes me.

When it is all done and dusted, though, much as I am enjoying the novelty of the experience,  I am still looking forward to having autonomy:  no word limit, to be able to read the New York Times all the way through in bed, and to just ramble and roam on here to my pretentious heart’s content.