Happy New Year

Happy New Year! 

Mine started with the conclusion of an incense brief collaboration and a banged-up knee and a back sprain. Yippee!

Someone in this glorious home spilled water on the tile in the foyer, and I, in the dark, sockless, slid right through it landing hard on my bum knee. This is on the heels of another fall about a week-and-a-half ago in the bathroom, same thing, wet tiles, sockless feet, surfing grandma. That time I landed on my butt and smacked my head on the door frame. Neither required medical attention, but both left me sore and bruised. 

My collab partner and I wrapped up the work we were doing, so now is the time to write up a report for the student who requested help and hand it over to them. I learned a thing or two about incense while working with another incenseur, nothing like a huge light bulb moment, more like an 'ah ha' kind of thing, but very invigorating and inspiring. 

I received a box of goodies from Dan at Apothecary's Garden, and my, my, my, am I impressed. The box arrived just a week or two into December, but I was in the throes of a cold (at least I think it was a cold) and couldn't breathe through my nose, let alone smell. That was, thankfully, short-lived, but then in the hustle of putting together Yule and everything that entails, the box was set aside, unopened, until a couple of days ago. 

The musk root is divine. I'm a huge fan of ammoniacum and almost everything ferula, and this musk root hits all of the high points, but with a superfine freshness that the resins don't normally have. The costus root is whole; big, fat wands (hey, there's an idea . . . ) of furry, goaty warmth. I swear, it's like catnip for me -- heck, I spend enough time on the floors these days, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to take some costus for the ride and wriggle around a little more while down there. Another stand-out was tonka absolute. It has the wow factor and reminds me of some fresh tonka beans I received from Brazil. Dan's tonka is nothing like the tonka we (or I) normally experience. It is a hundred times more rich and sweet than what has come across the bench before. It smells antique or vintage, like the small sample of antique tonka absolute that I have that was born some time in the 1930s. As a sample, I also received a small chunk of ivy resin. Ivy resin! How could you not love doing this job when you have such gorgeous and rare materials to work with? 

As an aside, I have noticed a trend in my personality over the past five or so years, my tendency to completely withdraw in the winter months, to read more, study more, and interact much, much less. I choose to normalize this for myself. Winter is a resting period, a time of reflection and contemplation, and restoration. My mother passed a day after Yule 8 years ago, so I'm fairly certain that has something to do with it as well. 

All of this slipping and sliding and dark, quiet mental solitude has led to a few things -- more incense ideas, more perfume ideas, more collaborative ideas, more of falling deeper into the art of scent.