It’s terribly vain, I know, but a project that I’m working on inspired another, and since I’m posting in backwards order, I have no choice but to quote myself (I’m smiling here, too):

Yeah, I want to smell what inspired that name.”

Like many of my favorite bloggers, I imagine and describe stories around the fragrances I smell. A tale unfolds as I raise wrist to nose, stories familiar and stories new evaporate before me; inhaling them, I make them my own. Catching the muse. At least, catching the muse as a perfume writer. This is how I manage to brew up some of my more inspired, albeit bizarre, “reviews”. (See Opus VI)

I’ve been languishing. It’d been so long since I last saw my muse, I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize her if she perched on my shoulder and flicked my ear, grandpa style. I make it sound pretty tragic, and it sort of is. When writing, and the perfume community in particular, has been such an integral part of my life for so long, and then POOF! it’s Gonzo! The experience is weirdly paralyzing. There were some fits and starts, but I hadn’t recaptured my muse.

I’m telling you this, because today something happened that caught my magpie eye. A sparkling nugget that has me itching to go. I’ll savor that golden reflection, and pray to catch fire again.

I can’t wait to tell you all about it!