New Beginnings

 It has recently occurred to me (although occurred is too passive a word for any of the realisations this year has brought)that theme and consistency just aren’t quite working for me. 

Not at the moment anyway. 

Certainly, I’ve stuck to things in the past, stuck like glue. But all I can really stick to now is the actual act of doing whatever it is that I’m doing. What I read will not always be in my usual genres, what I write might not be what I used to write, what I paint might be different to what I would have painted a few years ago. 

In short, I’ve changed. 

In truth, we all have. 

The selves we used to know intimately, completely have slipped away to make way for new selves. 2019 feel like another era, not just another year. It’s possible that as the oft quoted line from “The Go-Between” almost says “The past is another country” and one we can’t go back to. 

So, time to start over. 

Where do I begin? 

I suppose, with the things that go on. Do I still love art and history and literature? Yes, yes, yes to all of those! Am I a social butterfly? No. I wasn’t before and I’m even less so now. My social anxiety has social anxiety at the moment and I have no idea how long that will take to rebuild, but there you go. 

 Do I still like vintage clothes? Yes, in a new floaty, I don’t want anything to pinch or nip after a year of wearing indoor dresses. Yes, in a pass me all the soft, pretty, pastel colours I hardly ever wore before because right now I want to feel like a meadow, or a drifting stream.

 Do I still write? Yes, but differently. I mean, I’ve even been experimenting with the first person narrator (unreliable ones too) which I used to hate and now… No idea why that changed. Maybe, I’m just enjoying escaping into other peoples minds for a little while? Whatever it is, I’ll roll with it, that and occasionally using that most horrific of things to my uni creative writing tutor: the present tense. I can’t describe how much he hated present tense. I can’t describe how much I no longer care! 

Am I still creating art? 

OH YES! Though it’s gotten both cuter and, err, spookier recently. There will be festive ghostie images appearing later in the year if that floats your boat or the boat of anyone you know, love, or count as a frenemie. 

And now we come to that last big question. It’s probably the most relevant question in terms of this blog too. 

Am I still wearing perfume? 

Well… 

Ahhh… 

Yes… 

Sort of. In short it’s lots of roses. I’m loving rose perfumes all day, all year round. 

I’m dipped in Elizabethan rose from Penhaligons, drenched in Ralph Lauren’s Romance, dabbing on Yardley’s English rose (it’s actually pretty delightful for a scent so ubiquitous so do try it out). I’m here for all the roses, and I’m being completely comforted by them. 

Will I change from roses? 

Eventually, just not yet. So, if I talk about perfumes, they are going to be rose perfumes and that’s just one of those inescapable facts. 

So, there it is, the start of the start, what’s written on the other side of that new leaf.I hope, whoever you are now you find happiness and joy. I’m certainly questing after those particular questing beasts on a daily basis!

A Midsummer love story...

by Holly Cox

Roses.

Dense and deep at the heart of the wood roses grew. White roses mingled with red roses whose sharper thorns tore the petals of the white. They seemed to spread and flex the moment anyone drew close.

When Jean was young and filled with curiosity he would run off into the woods and play beneath the branches of the rose bushes.

Time and again he pestered the woodsman Franz until he told him the story of those roses.

'At the center of those roses,' Franz said, 'there lies a sleeper.'

'A tomb?' Jean asked. He knew the soft words people said when they meant death. He could imagine how a tomb, once lovingly planted with roses, could become so overgrown.

'No,' Franz said. 'A sleeper; one day, someone will approach and wake him.'

'Oh?' Jean was not sure he believed this story but he wanted to believe it.

'At the center of those roses, so they say, lies an enchanted Prince,' the woodsman frowned and hefted his axe. 'But who knows if the story is true or not.'

'Have you never seen it for yourself?'

'No, the roses will not let me near.' The woodsman gestured for Jean to watch as he swung his axe down on the mass of roses which strayed over the borders of the path. They swayed for a second and then, where the blade had struck, fresh shoots erupted each tipped with a tight red bud.

'Whatever lies within, it is touched by magic. That much I know for sure. The woodsman hefted his axe onto his shoulder and walked away humming an old country wedding tune. Yet it seemed to Jean that he the roses whispered to him, whenever he drew near he heard them saying;

‘Come to me, my love. Come to me.’

Jean stayed a moment longer and then he had gone home into the setting sun.

Years passed. Jean grew out of his habit of playing in the woods and applied himself to his studies instead. He forgot the roses and the woodsman's fairy tale till one evening, Midsummer Eve as it so happens; returning home from the University at which he studied Jean had cause to pause in the shade of those woods. He should have hurried through them, for at night the trees creaked and the shadows howled and it was all too easy to lose ones way. Ah, but Jean was a rational young man, student bold and brave. Jean did not hurry.

The roses were still there; growing in greater abundance than before. They bowed invitingly to Jean as he approached. The blooms so vivid; so mingled in their red and white he could not resist temptation but reached out a finger to touch them. The rose he touched was white as snow but beneath his finger it flushed as bright as a maiden's cheeks. How beautiful Jean thought and he touched the next bloom and the next till they were all flushed beneath his hand. Flushed their petals fell. With a creak the stems of the roses drew back. Dry bark sighed against dry bark. How could this be? Jean reached out again. He touched the bark of a branch but it shrank away from him. He watched the branches wither and part into the unmistakable shape of a passageway.

He recalled the story and he hesitated. One day, someone would come to awaken the Prince. However, even if there was any truth in the story that person would not be him. He was not a prince or even a nobleman. No, he was a poor student who would, in the fullness of time, inherit a bakery in the town.

Yet the roses parted to grant him entry.

He put one foot on the hearth and then, feeling a little bolder, he stepped all the way into the passageway. It was dark ahead of him; he put out his hand to feel the way and felt the rose thorns prick his skin. He feared that the entrance would vanish behind him; he feared that the roses would swallow him up but the woods remained behind him, twilight blue and full of noises. He took a few slow steps forward; he felt the prick of thorns with each step. There was a light up ahead, a flickering lantern flame whose light fell on a stone wall and a door of metal furnished oak.

There was a ring on the door and he reached for it. The door fell open at his touch. Dust hung in the air before him, bright sparks in the light of torches that ringed the walls of a large circular chamber. At the center of the room stood a dais draped in velvet which must once have been sublime but had succumbed to the passage of time and hung in dusty folds. All of this must have been here for some time yet the torches still burned and perfume scented the air.

'It cannot be.' Jean said to himself and he half expected that it would all fall away then like the figments of a dream. Nothing moved. He looked at the dais again and he saw, resting on the velvet, an object both beautiful and horrible: a glass coffin. Within the smooth crystal walls he could make out the shape of a body. Jean stepped back, he did not mind admitting that even his rational mind was afraid of the decay time must have wrought. However, fascination got the better of him. He stepped forward and was astounded to see the body of a young man about his own age and still very much whole. There were spices and solutions he reminded himself that could make a body seem whole for centuries. A clever trick, so carefully done in this instance that he could have sworn the young man was alive. Dark curls tumbled around a fresh face with flushed pink cheeks and lips red as cherries. Jean's footsteps echoed on the floor as he moved closer. He saw the hands of the Prince folded at his waist. He saw the Princes clothes, the style two or three hundred years out of style. He must have lain here that long at least. Jean brushed a little dust from the lid of the coffin. As he did so the whole coffin fell to snow and blew about the room leaving nothing between him and the Prince.

It must have been very fragile after all this time and shattered, Jean told himself. After all, glass does not turn to snow.

He could have sworn he saw the Prince's lips part a little revealing moist pearly teeth. The Prince's nose twitched with breath. Jean leaned forward and stared at these signs of life. He must have lost his footing for a second because in a second his own lips touched the Princes lips; lips deceptively hot as blood. He drew back, reached for the handkerchief in his pocket and dabbed at his lips. He was not a superstitious man in the habit of kissing dead lips and relics.

'At last,' a soft voice whispered, 'you have come!'

The Prince's dark eyes were open and his mouth curved into a smile. He spoke in the most beautiful voice and with each word the roses that choked the windows fell away with a great rustle of leaves. 

'I knew you would come,' The Prince said. His lips pressed; warm, against Jean’s lips. Jean’s arms slowly moved to enfold the prince. Outside the windows of the tower, the roses died away to a last few delicate blooms and the moonlight fell cool upon the tower floor.

On Midsummer Night, by the light of the moon, Jean and the Prince talked and embraced until 

falling asleep, on the cusp of dawn, the sunlight of the longest day found them and warmed them as 

one.   

©Holly Cox 2019

A Rose by any name.... Part 2

As the cavalier poet Robert Herrick wrote:
‘The rose was sick and smiling died;
And (being to be sanctified)
About the bed there sighing stood
The sweet and flowery sisterhood.’

It’s a beautiful poem, and a perfect illustration of the more morbid side of the rose. Yet, even at their darkest and most morbid, roses never forgo their romance or beauty. Think of the showers of bright rose petals in Alma Tadema’s famous painting: the roses of Heliogabalous; who wouldn’t want to nuzzle their way deep under that fragrant shower? The Emperor’s swooning guests certainly seem un-bothered by their rather picturesque fate. Perhaps they simply appreciate Alma-Tadema’s attention to detail: each petal was, legend has it, painted from life and one can well believe it when one looks at the vivid, lightly veined petals which seem to almost pulsate with life in contrast to the emperors hapless victims, suffocated as much by their perfume it seems as by the weight of so many flowers.
Darker roses can be intoxicating and delicious; these are the roses which follow us into autumn and winter, whose sharp thorns puncture the snow and whose red petals blaze through a haze of falling snowflakes.
So, here is a brief introduction to my two favourite perfumes in a darker genre of rose. Two different sorts of deeper, darker, delicious rose.

If you desire an immortal rose with just a hint of the gothic and a large dose of romanticism then none could fit the bill better than Frederic Malle Une Rose. Tuber notes give this perfume the qualities of an earthy kiss and red wine entwined with the roses throughout Edouard Flechier’s composition give the whole perfume a velvety intensity that few perfumes can match. It’s an utterly unique and deeply memorable example of the perfumers art. You dab this on and you instantly feel as if you have been wrapped in a velvet cloak, as though you are about to sit down to a rich dinner of truffles and wine, as if you are about to dance the tango and the feeling is sensational.

A less earthy but equally warm, dark and intense rose is Hatria by Angela Ciampagna. This perfume is a sensationally delicious blend of warmth and spice. Cloves and caramel wrap around this rose and the most notable initial notes before the rose starts to come through in earnest were, for me at least, saffron and sandalwood. A beautiful combination, the saffron floats away, whilst the sandalwood retreats into the background.   It’s a courtesan’s kiss of a perfume, it would be fabulous on the legendary Cora Pearl. This also feels like the perfume which should be wafting among Heliogablous’s unfortunate guests. Perhaps, the reason for the mysterious smiles on their lips and that delicious sense they give off that this really is the best party they’ve ever attended.

A Rose by any name... Part One.

With a single, poetic, flourish Shakespeare reminds us how beautiful the rose is, that was his talent.          The talent of all Roses it seems is to provide breathtaking beauty and romantic allegory. Yet the rose has many faces, many moods and every perfume which bears the name of rose reflects some different facet of the mythology of roses.

        “The Red rose breaths of passion 

          and the white rose breaths of love”

 As the poet John Boyle O’Reilly put it; although, in terms of perfumery that is a simplification too far.
       Because there are so many different facets of rose perfumery, I have decided to divide my post on rose perfumes into two and post the two halves over two weeks, In this, my first rose post, I want to review two of my current favourites of what one might call the romantic rose before exploring the genre of deliciously morbid rose scents next week.

     It may have something to do with the book I’m working on, whose title, taken from a poem by Robert Herrick, provides a constant reminder of the evocative nature of roses each time I open the document; or, it may simply be that Roses are hard to resist but I have been wearing a lot of rose perfumes lately. Especially the warm, evocative scents of summer roses in full bloom. Not the expensive, overly perfect roses piled high for Valentines day (I think, next weeks post might be a better place to delve into the symbolism of red roses on such a saints day) but the living, pulsating roses that still bear a trace of rain, sun and their own sharp thorns in their kisses.

                                                  Image via Wikimedia Commons.

    One of the most beautiful fragrances which I have discovered lately and which , for me, fits this genre is: Raw Silk and Red Roses from Sarah McCartney’s 4160 Tuesdays. On their site, the perfume is described as "A walk through a rose garden, with a touch of geranium, patchouli, musk and fruits." and that is just what the composition evokes for me; a garden on a late summer afternoon trailing, via an exquisite rose and gold sunset, into one of those perfect heavy blue evenings which only summer can paint. Cups of green tea, the rustle of a silk dress as it falls coolly around your skin, golden light in the sky and the roses shedding their scent are all evoked as notes of warm musk and sharp geranium unfold around an intense, perfect rose. At times it feels as if the rose is tearing it's way, dashingly, through it's wrapping of silk, ready to plant an intense kiss on ones lips. For me there's a little edge of promising, and very romantic, spiciness about the composition too,  I could bathe in this perfume quite happily and yet, fickle perfume lover that I am, I have been unfaithful to this rose with others.

     With my second romantic rose choice for instance. Lipstick Rose from Editions De Parfums Frederic Malle is a pure distillation of glamour. Naturally, it appealed to my love of vintage. Never without my own red lipstick I was enraptured by the soft, sweet scent of this perfume. Rose and violet top notes play beautifully together on a base that comes through deeply amber to my nose and keep the whole composition in tune with a delightful longevity. Inspired by the scent of perfumer Ralf Schweiger's mother's lipstick it weaves a familiar spell for anyone who has ever clicked open a powder compact or vanity case in a vintage shop (since the original smell fades with time, I have topped uo my vintage compacts interior with a light spritz of Lipstick Rose so that I can inhale it's beauty each time I refresh my make-up). It's a perfume which feel real and human because of it's cosmetic smell. It's never without the essence of the woman wearing the perfume, wearing the lipstick. Her smile bleeds through Cheshire cat like and makes the fragrance her own as surely as a lipstick signature on a mirror marks out her territory. I confess, when I wear Lipstick Rose on my skin, one spritz is never enough! If you love vintage, old movies, even satcks of brittle but still magnificent fashion magazines then Lipstick Rose may just be the perfume for you!
      Well, that my two favourite romantic roses reviewed; hopefully, I have put my passion for them across! Next week, there will be more from Malle and others as the rose grows a little gothic...