#apologies to perfume enthusiasts bc i’m probably mangling your topic

[charismaquark]

it continually amazes me, just how many things there are to be passionate about. pick a topic and there’s probably a whole community of people discussing it in more detail than you could ever have dreamed was worth thinking about.

i like perfume. well, i thought i liked perfume. i have an inherited bottle of chanel no. 5, two precious little flasks from a fancy parfumerie overseas, a couple of things i picked up at bath & body works because they smelled nice. i know florals and citruses, musks and vanillas. give me a description and i’ve probably got a vague sense of whether i’ll like it.

today i found a perfume blog. (we won’t talk about how i got there, because i sure wasn’t looking for it.) and… i could not make sense of half of what i read.

do you know how many words they use, these fragrance connoisseurs? top notes and sillages. chypres and florientals. i’m fairly sure they don’t use the term “green” in the same way i do.

do you know how much history there is, how much context and reference there is to explain and compare things? versace, givenchy, yves st laurent. giorgio, which everyone loved until everyone else started using it. love’s baby soft, quintessential tweenhood of the 80s. inspirations, comparisons. vintages and originals.

do you know how much emotion there is? the fierce quibbling over ma griffe, whether it’s a triumph of audacity or a bygone disgrace. the joyous anticipation of hunting down a long-lost vial in a thrift shop. the rush of memories from uncorking something your grandmother used to wear, the belated realization that her generation marked that scent as a wild girl’s statement piece. the melancholy, in knowing that you’ll never know the scent of a signature in its heyday, that forty years from now your favorites might not be recognizeable either.

i study science. i know about jargon. most people i talk to won’t understand gravitational microlensing, stereoisomers, iterative optimization algorithms. there’s a good chance that they don’t know the difference between kirigami and a kite base, tunisian dwarf stitch from irish lace.

some people watch star wars for a lark, leave the theater and move on with their lives. some people post calligraphy quotes from lord of the rings on their wall, and never crack the book open again. some people read mistborn and then leave the memory of their tears on the library shelf.

and this satisfies them. they say, yes! i like it very much. and yet they never think to debate the moral implications of the jedi code. they don’t know who fëanor is, and probably don’t care. they have never wondered whether allomancers can burn shardblades. it mystifies me.

and yet. how many people would look at me and think, how quaint, that she doesn’t know a socket wrench from a sautering iron. a daquiri from a doppio. a chiaroscuro from a cheongsam.

how many worlds do i miss while my eyes glaze over in polite confusion?

maybe i already have a floriental, languishing unnamed in a drawer of cheap perfumes, because i’ve never known or needed that word before.

it’s strange and beautiful, to be reminded of all the things i don’t know.