Transcendence

I receive a treasure chest. On the surface, it appears to be a cardboard box with a Post-it note on the outside. There’s a heart drawn on the Post-it and my name. Inside the box, an assortment of amber bottles is packed tightly together. Different sizes, different shapes, screw caps, dropper caps, sticky, smudged labels. Some still contain liquids ranging from dark and thick to light and aqueous. Others are empty. Only a label and sometimes an aroma lingers.

I could be momentarily fooled into thinking that this box is half-filled with trash. Not so. Even empty bottles tell a story, fit together into the puzzle that this box presents. Its contents represent the remains of the supplies of not one, but two perfumers, making me the second inheritor of the treasure. The first perfumer left to attend a school in Grasse, leaving her kit to the second. The second perfumer left to attend school in Versailles, leaving the kit to me.

I find and smell empty bottles of materials that I’ve never had the opportunity to smell before. There are multiples of certain materials to an extent that speaks of a certain olfactory obsession. The materials that are present, as well as those that are not, reveal the tastes and fascinations of my predecessors. It’s like reading two journals written in a secret language of the nose. I discover two bottles labeled as “Accord” and one labeled “Transcendence.” Transcendence is the outcome of the passions and interests I have perceived in these bottles.

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