Scent and it’s mysterious associations. Inflections of the smell caught in clothing. Checking through things to put in the laundry I come across almost too few people. this was sunday with west coast swing Recognizing the people from what they leave behind in my shirt. Where it touched them when I hugged them. It’s worse when it gets caught in my hair. Perfume, incense, what sort of soap do you use? Cigarette smoke has so many associations. People who used to but have now quit, people who I kissed with that taste in their mouths. Bitter and poison, but worth it for the touch of the tongue. Almost a sexiness in the taste of alcohol. It’s related. It’s a language. I feel confused sometimes when I come across friends who share the same preferences in toiletries. “Who do you smell like? Not Grady, Grady was apples. Who was it that I patterned that to?” Hauntingly familiar and with the wrong face. Gets me every time caught in pondering. I flash back to where I was when I knew that unknown person. Where was I standing, how far around me might their arms have gone when I bid them goodbye. I thought Grady, was it at the Studio? Keely?
I’ve got what I think of my soap going again. For once I’m starting to smell again what I thought I did. I can’t catch my own scent, so instead I make do with Nag Champa and Vanilla. I like finding other people in my things, it’s nice to think I might do it to other people in spite of not wearing scent. Knowing who the last person to touch something was. Knowing that I saw this person or that and that we smiled. I think of the day and other days and it makes me happy for a split second. The fact that I also have a small collection of other peoples left behind clothing amuses me when I think of it. Lendings and left behinds. I have a pair of Bryans socks from, like, six or seven years ago. {a blue tent up on the airfield. he spent the night in the tent with mishka and myself. his socks were quickly stuffed into my bag when we noticed them in morning. her parents would have been furious we’d been up all night talking, especially with a boy, no matter it was her brother}
It reminds me of music.