The scent of an old life

Here I am in Nelson, staying with friends and getting ready for my first big Moving Sale this coming Saturday morning.  I’m a bit nervous- but Oh So Ready to let go of my old life so I can be liberated to go back and commence my beautiful new one in Grasse.   It’s very interesting to be in my storage locker after a year and a half away- the scent there is so familiar- essential oils, cocoa butter plus all the other more personal scents of me (clothes, linens etc)  that I associate so strongly with who I was before I left.  But now I don’t resonate with them- because I and my current life smell different- I am different. I recognize the scent as me, but not me now.  It’s fascinating really and makes it easy to let it all go. I’m really experiencing all this as a scent/memory/associative adventure and because of that, am finding it quite complex emotionally and otherwise. That said, I feel like an observer more than I ever have before- simply taking it all in and feeling what is evoked. I suppose this is what it is to live life as a perfumer!  After all we must be completely open to all smells and therefore all experiences as they arise.  This is what a perfumer told me recently in the gardens of the soon to open Perfume Museum in Grasse- ‘you must be open to everything’.