Being John Wesley: A Few Words On Art, Life, and the Unknown Impact of Others

This weekend marked the anniversary of my ten-year college reunion.  I was on my class committee, but unfortunately ended up extremely sick on Friday.  Consequently, I was stuck in bed most of the weekend and only rallied to make it to the retirement party of a beloved campus icon and staff member today because there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to celebrate a staff member who meant so much to me.

Unfortunately, being sick meant missing the opportunity to spend time with the one person I really wanted to see at reunion: my sweet friend Bonnie. Bonnie was a tremendously talented woman I had the good fortune, not only to meet in college, but to work closely with during our individual and joint quests to top each other as the bigger overachiever in the Lewis & Clark College History Department.  Bonnie was every bit as passionate as I was about studying history, learning the research and analytical skills to be a good historian in her own right, and ensuring the stories of those who were likely to be overlooked or lost to the sands of time be captured and retold, so that we might learn from all those who went before, not only those who were privileged in moment of their lives.

Bonnie made me a better student.  She was my partner when I faced the rare and dreaded group project (something I have never been a fan of); she was my reciprocal support system and study buddy when the nights of research went long; and she was someone I respected enough to want to compete with, to want to earn the respect of, and whom I desired to share my work with, so that it might be improved in the sharing.  When it came to history, Bonnie was my cheerleader, champion, critique partner, and friend. 

But Bonnie helped me grow in a different and arguably more important way.  When I met Bonnie, she was far further along in her feminism than I was.  While I was trying to figure out what feminism meant to me and the kind of feminist I wanted to be, Bonnie was helping found the Womyn’s Center, organizing The Vagina Monologues, and single-handedly putting together a week of Take Back the Night events.  Most of the truly feminist programming that happened while I was a student at Lewis & Clark was run, in large part, by Bonnie.  I spent most of my time in college being a feminist academic, learning to parse thick texts and integrate my radical feminism into my already established philosophical framework and life experiences; meanwhile, Bonnie was busy being the hands-on activist and advocate it would take me years to become. 

When I met Bonnie, we both had the same dream: to become American historians and professors of history like our shared academic mentors. However, as way led to way, Bonnie stayed on the path to academia, while I stumbled into other interests and opportunities.  I don’t regret my choices, but I will say that my own inability to maintain the kind of passion and dedication we once shared deepened my respect and admiration for Bonnie as I watched her press on in the face of adversity where I would have turned back.

I discovered today, upon receiving a copy of Bonnie’s now completed doctoral dissertation, that my name appears in the acknowledgements.  Bonnie calls me her “first friend to love history.”  But if I am her first friend to love history, then Bonnie was my first true feminist friend.  Without her, I wouldn’t be half the person I am today; I am also fairly certain this blog would not exist. 

What stunned me about finding my name in Bonnie’s dissertation acknowledgements most was that  I had no idea I’d made such an impact on her life.  Similarly, I suspect she has no idea she had such a significant impact on mine.  At the time, we were just two young women who shared a passion for history, story-telling, and the secret untold stories of women and children.  We ate together, studied together, grew together, and never once did it occur to us at the time that we were shaping each other into the adults we’d later become.

The last thing shared by our outgoing Vice President of Campus Living at his retirement party today was this charge to all in attendance, borrowed from John Wesley: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”  I’ve been thinking about those words a lot, and about Bonnie’s dissertation note, and about those two girls pouring through the books in the reference section of the library over a decade ago.

You never know who is going to happen into your life and, though you don’t know it in the moment, change you in a subtle but fundamental way, like a rock thrown into the pond of your being, rippling out and out forever.  It may be the girl with the stripped stockings and spiky blonde hair with pink bangs who is willing to match you late night minute-for-sleep-deprived-minute on a research project, and in turn teaches you not just about history or feminism, but also of how much you are actually capable of when you are pushed to do your best.  It may be the lovely woman with the vintage dresses and classic sense of style who introduces you to your first beautiful perfumes, sparking a passion for olfactory art that changes forever the way you interact with the world.  It may be the kindly old vice president who encourages you to stand up for yourself when you’re fighting with the entire theatre department to bring new works of art and new collaboration to a college; it may by the young, passionate sound designing roommate whose work on a beautiful play inspires you to think about what art is and what it means to create something, then to pick up a pen and start writing again for the first time in weeks.

You never know who will change your life; you never know when you might change someone else’s. And since you don’t know, since you may never know, whose life you are changing in the moment, then perhaps that makes Wesley’s charge even more timely, and therefore appropriate:

Do all the good you can.
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can.
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can.
As long as ever you can.

You just never know when you might be the person who makes all the difference.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a copy of The Student Body: A History of the Stewart Indian School, 1890-1940 to read.

If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended.

And thus ends A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Perfume Event.  Thanks again to everyone who thought, dreamed, alchemied, sniffed, or read about these perfumes, especially Amanda F., aka Absinthe Dragonfly, for organizing all of us.

And above all, thanks to Shakespeare, and all those who continue to teach and celebrate his works, for giving us so much to make merry from.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - JoAnne Bassett Perfumes Night Queen

JoAnne Bassett Perfumes Night Queen (Reine de Nuit EdP)

"Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely.
Hey, that's me and I want you only."

Stop number three on our Shakespearean adventures is brought to you courtesy of JoAnne Bassett Perfumes. This is also a meditation on the Queen of Fae, Titania. Given the broad themes of the play, the interesting and various characters, even the play within the play, I have to say I’m surprised how many of the perfumers were drawn to a scented meditation of Titania. I think it speaks to how large she looms in the imagination of those who encounter the work.

The notes for Night Queen are “rhododendron, night queen, peru balsam, rosewood, damask rose oil, neroli, tuberose, vintage jasmine sambac, frankincense, yuzu, clove bud, tulsi, frankinsense noir, champa, vetiver, violet leaf and ylang ylang.”

Image by
Howard David Johnson

The initial impression is mossy but not minty, of pines but not firs, which have a strong presence in the woods here. This feels more like the pines of the Blue Ridge, the Appalachians. The open wears close to the skin, and it isn’t what I’d call aggressively green or earthy. There’s a little bit of a briny quality to it, as well, like a warm, wet ocean lies just beyond the edge of the trees and hangs heavy in the moist air.

About forty-five minutes in, the mossy greens and briny blues fall away and the scent becomes a sweet floral scent. I do get the clove, frankincense, and ylang-ylang strongly, but the interesting center of this seems to be the night queen. I love the idea of the scent for this play being centered on a night blooming flower, something that comes out to bring a sense of romance as day turns to darkness, much like the fae in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The loveliness is even more wonderful because it is so unexpected; I can hardly detect the scent that it will become at the beginning of Night Queen. Having never encountered the flower before, I'd describe it here as a sweet gently edible floral, and reminds me of a rich tea blend with a chamomile center. There’s more sillage here, which is great! I really liked this one came in strong, because it is so, so pretty. The only other scent can think of that this drydown reminds me of even a little bit is INeKE Evening Edged in Gold, but when I put them next to each other, I have to think the resemblance is mostly in my mental landscape.

When one holds the scent under the nose, it smells like one thing, the application is a second, but the majority of the wearable scent comes in as a completely surprising third act. The overall scent reminds me of the bloom of love. It grows from an earthy attraction to the polite engagement of first dates and early courtship until it becomes love affirmed and deeply requited, a lush and sensual emotional experience.

“Show a little faith.
There's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but, hey, you're alright,
Oh and that's alright with me…”

I don’t know that I’d identify this with scent with the Queen of Fae as I envision her. (Incidentally, I don’t know what I’m looking for in a scent for Titania; I can't think of any scent I know of that would fit, but my nose is loving all of these scents made in her image as different potential ways she could be played.) To me, Night Queen instead reminds me of the young, fresh faced lovers who play out their lost, confused love quadrangle throughout the majority of Shakespeare's comedy.

As for Midsummer, if this scent were made into a production of the play, I’d expect it to be set in the 1950s in the Appalachians and focus on the interplay of the teen love and angst the play could contain. Hermia, a pretty young blonde, refuses to have a romance arranged by her parents with Demetrius, who in my version is a star high school athlete and a bit of a player. Demetrius has won approval to date Hermia by working part-time in Hermia's father's garage after school and charming Hermia's mother with his nice family and nice manners.

Hermia, a straight-A student and very popular and pretty girl, prefers instead the love of Lysander, who is a hardworking student bound to inherit his dad's hardware store one day. Lysander has won Hermia's heart over the course of many months of Sundays spent helping out Hermia with the Sunday school class she teaches, where they spent time together in light of Hermia's father's strict rules that did not allow Hermia to date.

Hermia's preference for Lysander is also important to Helena, a pretty but slightly dingy cheerleader. Helena was hot and heavy with Demetrius before he decided Hermia made for a prettier picture come prom time. Helena still pines for Demetrius, and laments her lost love to Hermia over their brown paper lunch bags regularly. As Hermia and Lysander plan to make their escape to Lysander's aunt on the eve of Hermia's eighteenth birthday so they can get married before Hermia's parents can stop them, Helena hopes that by telling Demetrius of their plans, she can finally convince him to give up on his pursuit of Hermia and choose her instead.

Then they all head into the wooded mountains in classic American cars along dark old highways, getting lost and eventually finding themselves bewitched by the fae and the old magicks that have always lived among country folk in the American south, and still do even today.

While Hollywood is all obsessed with remaking everything old new again, someone should get on this. And the screenplay writers should be required to wear "Night Queen" and listen to Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" while they create the retelling. Because when I close my eyes and inhale this rich and wonderful perfume, I hear big engines and poodle skirt swishes and Bruce Springsteen playing as the scent glides through the open windows, playing at the hair of our young lovers, as they roar off into the night.

Well, now, I'm no hero, that's understood.
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood.
With a chance to make it good somehow,
Hey what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.
Well the night's bustin' open, these two lanes will take us anywhere.
We got one last chance to make it real
to trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back.
Heaven's waiting down on the tracks…”

To see more visit A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Perfume Event, running June 14-24, 2011.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - EnVoyage Perfumes Titania

En Voyage Perfumes Titania

Edward Robert Hughes's
Midsummer Eve

The second Midsummer scent I received was from Shelley Waddington of EnVoyage Perfumes. She also provided a meditation on the Titania, Queen of Fae, but this took its inspiration from a very different part of Shakespeare’s play.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses and eglantine.
~Oberon, describing Titania’s bower, where she sleeps.

Top Notes: Fir Needles, Spice and Citrus.
Heart Notes: Basil, Mint, Geranium, Lavender Hidcote, Ylang-Ylang, Wild Rose and Heliotrope.
Base Notes: Juniper, Ho-Wood, Aromatic Woods and Nuts, Moss, Fern, Savory Leaves, Iris, Honey.

This is Titania as her vexed but nonetheless doting lover sees her. It is so different from Bellatrix Perfumes Titania, it is almost astonishing. Ankica Milic’s Titania is strong and bold, and the passage Ankica choose includes lines that can be played as vaguely threatening. Shelley Waddington focuses instead on Titania’s softness, and beauty. It gives us a scent that is more a reflection of the Queen, as seen through the eyes of a lover, than that of a mirror. And yet, despite the wildly different trajectory here, I think it is equally beautiful!

Galadriel, the Lady of the Wood

The top is fresh and minty and reminds me of falling asleep on a bed of fresh pine needles in a cool forest. The sweetness is very gentle and natural. It is so elegant, as though a beautiful cape were made from the greenest spring leaves and mosses and a crown made from the tender twisted stems and branches and wrapped around you. It has a kind of majesty to it that remind me of what it might be like to see Cate Blanchett play Titania as though she were much softer version of Galadriel. In my mind, I go immediately to the image of the playful, dreamy Titania after she has been bewitched by Oberon, which apparently was the exact inspiration. But it not only reminds me of Titania as she is lying sleepily in her bower, it also reminds me of the slowly waking lovers near the end of the play, when they arise and cannot recall if they have lived, or merely dreamed, the night’s events.

I really wish I could place the sweet part of this. I keep looking to the notes for guidance, but I just can’t work it out. I think I’m mostly getting geranium, with a decent hit of lavender and honey. Yes, I’m definitely getting lavender, now that I think back to my friend Tiff’s wedding, which was an outdoor June pagan wedding in a wood along a lake, and lavender was the theme flower/scent. She carried lavender; some of the cupcakes were lemon lavender; we threw cups of dried lavender over the couple as they left. It was dark and warmly wet and the smell of lavender was everywhere that afternoon and night; I suspect if you were going to make her a scent in commemoration of the event, which was very midsummer themed (fairy themed touches around the wedding as well), this might be, not the scent she wore, but the actual smell of her union day itself. FN1.

Bridal Veil Lakes,
where my friend was married

Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.
~ Oberon, giving instructions to the fairies

Which brings me to another tangential, but thematically appropriate, thought. This would make an excellent scent for a summer wedding, in the merry, marry month of June. Shakespeare’s work itself transpires around what becomes a triple wedding, and this seems like an excellent scent for a warm outdoor ceremony, because I can imagine it warming on the skin beautifully without becoming overpowering. How perfectly it all plays together, and how wonderfully Shelley Waddington did with this one. If you close your eyes, you can imagine this smell wafting through the whole of Theseus and Hippolyta’s house at the play’s end as an olfactory experience of having each couple’s love, and all those among them, and all those their love has yet to create, being blessed by nature and by magic.

Wonderful. Magical. A hit for summer, for love, and definitely worth owning if made available for purchase.

To see more visit A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Perfume Event, running June 14-24, 2011.
______________________________
1. I’ll tell you, because I know you’d want to know, she wore Coco Mademoiselle.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Bellatrix Perfumes Titania

Bellatrix Perfumes Titania

The first Midsummer scent I bring you comes from the lovely Ankica Milic of Bellatrix Perfumes.

She provided me the following to reflect on as I sampled her scent, Titania:

Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate;
The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
I’ll gve thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.

Notes: Rosewood, Pink Pepper, Mentha peperita, Tuberose, Rose damascene abs., Neroli, Iris, Labdanum, Violet leaf, Orris butter, Sandal album, Angelica root, Ambrette, Oak moss, Patchouli.

What a lovely choice of words for an artistic meditation. I believe, on this passage alone, I could plan an entire lovely summer wedding. Titania’s woods are in many ways like love itself – once ensnared, it is a place one not only cannot leave, but does not wish to flee, for how sweet are its tender entrapments!

The scent, then, to me is less a mediation on the Queen of Fae herself, than on that blessed and magickal place that lives in our hearts, the haze of love that feels like the moment between sleeping and wakefulness. A drowsing dreamy state, where one might feel the gentle press of hands and gentler kiss of brow and cheek, and even in that unconsciousness, sigh for the happiness of it.

In that respect, Ankica has done her material a turn considerably more than fair. The scent is one that eyes closed and listening to Shakespeare’s words, might conjure in one’s mind images of the characters venturing into the woods that fateful night.

I cannot say that it is much like anything else I have tried, though I see some similarity to both strongly woody scents and some nerolis. The opening is full of pepper and menthe, which quickly retreats and folds strongly toward rosewood, oak moss, and patchouli. Violet leaf lurks, and rose as well. I give Ankica true credit for managing such a gentle patchouli. Usually it is a note so overwhelming I have to struggle to catch anything else. I do not get any iris, sadly, but I do not find it a loss here.

To give a sense of the scent beyond my own expression, let me give some other comparisons. It has some in common with Dana English Leather, but it less sharp featured and masculine than this cousin. Compared to Jo Malone Orange Blossom, Ankica's scent is less flowery and sweet and more of smooth wood, more inclined toward Fair Titania's hidden home than she herself. It is not so green as to share any relation to Roxana Illuminated Perfumes GreenWitch, though the Queen of Fae be both green and bewitching. It is very lovely, and makes a truly sweet scent for this project.

I hope Ankica will make it available when she chooses to launch her line. I’d like to own it. It fills a hole in my collection I did not know existed until I smelled the scent. And in this respect, it is quite like finding love when for love one seeks least.

That may be Titania and Oberon’s greatest trick here, and it is a good one.

To see more visit A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Perfume Event, running June 14-24, 2011.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Perfume Event begins tomorrow!

A couple of months ago, I received a lovely and flattering invitation to participate as a blogger and reviewer in a lovely project -- a scented mediation on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Sixteen perfumers and eleven bloggers are participating and I was lucky enough to be included.

In any circumstance I would be so flattered, but I have particular affection for this play among the Bard's works. Like so many, I read it in high school.  However, A Midsummer Night's Dream also came to the Houston Grand Opera around that time, and I got to see it on a choir field trip.  It was the first, and remains the only, opera I have had the opportunity to see live and in person.  Even today, almost twenty years later, I remember thinking how beautiful and magical the story was.  The music was beautiful, the sets were stunning, and the emotion palpable.

Since then I've seen the play performed live twice and the three major film adaptations -- 1935, 1968, and the more recent 1999 American film, the latter at the theater. Every time I have read the play or scene a production of it, I find something new and fresh to find affection in.  Like so much of Shakespeare's works, each interpretation provides and opportunity to see the themes and parts played out differently, so that one may bring focus to one or another in making the play their own.

So it is with great pride and special affection I take part in this, A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Perfume Event, running June 14- 24. This main link will be a clearing hour for the various related writings and the place to find an updated list of posts from all the participants related to the project.

For myself?  I have four fabulous scents to review.  My posts will begin as most things Shakespeare-related do -- Anon!

Many humble thanks to all the perfumers for trusting us poor sods and our noses with your endeavors, and to Amanda of Esscentual Alchemy for putting the whole thing together.