Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Scent of Nostalgia
The past number of weeks of infrequent pouring rain did nothing to flush away the trails of his visit.
I noticed that two of his cigarette stubs are still lying at the front of my house.
Then there are the pillows that he had slept on and the blanket that he had used to cover his half naked body. I haven’t taken them to wash. I’m sure if I sniffed hard enough and bring those sleeping items close to me, I would spot the remnants of his scent. I sure did that afternoon he left me unexpectedly at 4pm and for the next few days to come.
The lingering scent of lovers and flings on my possessions always has this nostalgic effect on me. It is the cruel scent that seems to put its mark everywhere, like confetti strewn all over the carpet to remind you that although the party is over, there is much work to be done with cleaning out and clearing out. Emotionally speaking, that is. Somehow, you will always still manage to find that stray confetti laying around for a long while post the party. Often, that scent serves as a sharp aide memoire of the high and happy feeling you get from being intoxicated by romance and alcohol, a potent combination nonetheless, and then in one fell sweep, you hit your lowest point and thereby, you get trapped and continue to suffer the nasty effects of hangover from over-indulgence, which in this case, is a reality check that translates into a sense of void where you have little choice but to resign yourself to fate, conceding involuntarily that the love affair is considered over…
You wonder silently if you are the only sad and pathetic loser (who rarely gets invited anywhere) still hankering over the ended merry-making while others have moved on, perhaps with more exciting parties to rock on…
****
I remember that night where my soul got invigorated. It was last December. For the first time in years, I began to dance ever so carefree. It was the night where I was asked to dance on two separate occasions by two Latinos on the dance floor. One of them, a greasy haired, tall and lean sleaze boy led me to do the meringue and then twirled and felt his hands up my body and down and we did a dirty dance. I was clearly enjoying myself, having been drinking for the past twelve hours or so and must have resulted in me being sufficiently light-hearted. I was still very alert as I have paced my drinking very well and recalled the night rather vividly. I have never danced so intimately with anyone in my life, with a stranger breathing down my neck and smothering it with butterfly kisses and with every heavier advances he made at me, I twirled myself flirtatiously away and he twirled me back to him and I did a dip backwards when he held me by the waist and lowered himself in an attempt to kiss me on the lips, which I turned my face away.
I never found out his name. We danced and barely spoke, apart from his initial heavily Columbian accented English, “one, two, three…” as he counted to the beat of my dance steps initially. I noticed that he lingered near me even when the party was over and the club bouncers were slowly herding us out. I deliberately avoided his eye contact and hung close to my male colleague, the Accountant so that he didn’t have a chance to attempt chatting me up. I felt free because for once, I truly experienced first hand the essence of the art form that I have noticed during my nights in Havana and in the Latino clubs in Paris of Latino lovers raising the heat on the dance floor to a boiler as their sweaty bodies moved seductively towards each other, teasing the other with a quick twirl to unwrap an embrace or a backward dip, whilst their lusty expressions betrayed their hunger for each other’s touch. But what struck me most importantly from my experience was that given the intensity of that intimacy or dance floor chemistry (hitherto not experienced), I did not form an attachment or the need to acquaint myself with my dance partner. I felt libre. I truly did.
The Latino wore nice male cologne and given our constant intimate rubbing on the dance floor, I got a lot of his scent on my dress. For weeks, my dress had lain in my dirty pile of clothes. Once as I was sorting out my laundry, I held up the dress and distinctly caught on the smell of that night. It would have been a good three weeks by now but the aroma of that night was still sitting nicely on my dress. I held it close to me and inhaled the scent of my stranger once more to relive that liberating night vicariously through what my olfactory senses could picked up. I contemplated for a moment and decided to allow the memory to live a bit longer before it got extinguished for good in the washing machine. So I threw the dress back into the dirty pile until I could no longer leave it in its unwashed state. When the dress finally went into the washing, that night too was eternally banished to my memory bank quite happily without any tinge of nostalgia or desire to procrastinate any form of closure.
****
I quite remember reading one of Anais Nin’s novels where one of the main character, a prostitute loves the scent of a man on her post-sex while she shuttles from one lover to the other without washing herself.
I love deliberating on that point. I often asked myself why.
The submissive desire for one to be marked as someone else’s territory? And the deep seated vulnerability betraying one’s yearning to be loved ever so exclusively by the object of one’s affections?
The scent leaves the most lasting of presence in one’s memory even when one could no longer see as clearly the moment one was determined to hoard and preserve in one’s mind eye long after a precious incident.
Every so often, I get a sense of déjà vu or memory jog when my nose chanced upon a smell that might instinctively transport me to a forgotten past or a sense of misplaced familiarity in my distant existence as a child many moons ago. I sometimes feel I have lived a few lives over in my short lifespan but still, the memory of the sense of smell could neither cheat nor confuse even the very blind. The scent just has a way of leaving a legacy to its remembrance.
Then there is the unique scent of lovers and flings involuntarily infused in my cognitive senses; my nose lightly taking in the distinctive scent with every breath as my mouth and tongue strayed from their lips and tenderly wandered to their bare skins- savouring the ear lobe, neck, chest and then occasionally down south; the smell of each intimate region I have trespassed would forever characterised one guy from the other and be captured in my recollection of these brief romantic encounters. The lingering memory continues to haunt me for making such errant joint histories with these individuals, mostly half-strangers (although alas, I am not one to live in regrets) but most cuttingly, to mock the foolishness of my sentimentality.
The past number of weeks of infrequent pouring rain did nothing to flush away the trails of his visit.
I noticed that two of his cigarette stubs are still lying at the front of my house.
Then there are the pillows that he had slept on and the blanket that he had used to cover his half naked body. I haven’t taken them to wash. I’m sure if I sniffed hard enough and bring those sleeping items close to me, I would spot the remnants of his scent. I sure did that afternoon he left me unexpectedly at 4pm and for the next few days to come.
The lingering scent of lovers and flings on my possessions always has this nostalgic effect on me. It is the cruel scent that seems to put its mark everywhere, like confetti strewn all over the carpet to remind you that although the party is over, there is much work to be done with cleaning out and clearing out. Emotionally speaking, that is. Somehow, you will always still manage to find that stray confetti laying around for a long while post the party. Often, that scent serves as a sharp aide memoire of the high and happy feeling you get from being intoxicated by romance and alcohol, a potent combination nonetheless, and then in one fell sweep, you hit your lowest point and thereby, you get trapped and continue to suffer the nasty effects of hangover from over-indulgence, which in this case, is a reality check that translates into a sense of void where you have little choice but to resign yourself to fate, conceding involuntarily that the love affair is considered over…
You wonder silently if you are the only sad and pathetic loser (who rarely gets invited anywhere) still hankering over the ended merry-making while others have moved on, perhaps with more exciting parties to rock on…
****
I remember that night where my soul got invigorated. It was last December. For the first time in years, I began to dance ever so carefree. It was the night where I was asked to dance on two separate occasions by two Latinos on the dance floor. One of them, a greasy haired, tall and lean sleaze boy led me to do the meringue and then twirled and felt his hands up my body and down and we did a dirty dance. I was clearly enjoying myself, having been drinking for the past twelve hours or so and must have resulted in me being sufficiently light-hearted. I was still very alert as I have paced my drinking very well and recalled the night rather vividly. I have never danced so intimately with anyone in my life, with a stranger breathing down my neck and smothering it with butterfly kisses and with every heavier advances he made at me, I twirled myself flirtatiously away and he twirled me back to him and I did a dip backwards when he held me by the waist and lowered himself in an attempt to kiss me on the lips, which I turned my face away.
I never found out his name. We danced and barely spoke, apart from his initial heavily Columbian accented English, “one, two, three…” as he counted to the beat of my dance steps initially. I noticed that he lingered near me even when the party was over and the club bouncers were slowly herding us out. I deliberately avoided his eye contact and hung close to my male colleague, the Accountant so that he didn’t have a chance to attempt chatting me up. I felt free because for once, I truly experienced first hand the essence of the art form that I have noticed during my nights in Havana and in the Latino clubs in Paris of Latino lovers raising the heat on the dance floor to a boiler as their sweaty bodies moved seductively towards each other, teasing the other with a quick twirl to unwrap an embrace or a backward dip, whilst their lusty expressions betrayed their hunger for each other’s touch. But what struck me most importantly from my experience was that given the intensity of that intimacy or dance floor chemistry (hitherto not experienced), I did not form an attachment or the need to acquaint myself with my dance partner. I felt libre. I truly did.
The Latino wore nice male cologne and given our constant intimate rubbing on the dance floor, I got a lot of his scent on my dress. For weeks, my dress had lain in my dirty pile of clothes. Once as I was sorting out my laundry, I held up the dress and distinctly caught on the smell of that night. It would have been a good three weeks by now but the aroma of that night was still sitting nicely on my dress. I held it close to me and inhaled the scent of my stranger once more to relive that liberating night vicariously through what my olfactory senses could picked up. I contemplated for a moment and decided to allow the memory to live a bit longer before it got extinguished for good in the washing machine. So I threw the dress back into the dirty pile until I could no longer leave it in its unwashed state. When the dress finally went into the washing, that night too was eternally banished to my memory bank quite happily without any tinge of nostalgia or desire to procrastinate any form of closure.
****
I quite remember reading one of Anais Nin’s novels where one of the main character, a prostitute loves the scent of a man on her post-sex while she shuttles from one lover to the other without washing herself.
I love deliberating on that point. I often asked myself why.
The submissive desire for one to be marked as someone else’s territory? And the deep seated vulnerability betraying one’s yearning to be loved ever so exclusively by the object of one’s affections?
The scent leaves the most lasting of presence in one’s memory even when one could no longer see as clearly the moment one was determined to hoard and preserve in one’s mind eye long after a precious incident.
Every so often, I get a sense of déjà vu or memory jog when my nose chanced upon a smell that might instinctively transport me to a forgotten past or a sense of misplaced familiarity in my distant existence as a child many moons ago. I sometimes feel I have lived a few lives over in my short lifespan but still, the memory of the sense of smell could neither cheat nor confuse even the very blind. The scent just has a way of leaving a legacy to its remembrance.
Then there is the unique scent of lovers and flings involuntarily infused in my cognitive senses; my nose lightly taking in the distinctive scent with every breath as my mouth and tongue strayed from their lips and tenderly wandered to their bare skins- savouring the ear lobe, neck, chest and then occasionally down south; the smell of each intimate region I have trespassed would forever characterised one guy from the other and be captured in my recollection of these brief romantic encounters. The lingering memory continues to haunt me for making such errant joint histories with these individuals, mostly half-strangers (although alas, I am not one to live in regrets) but most cuttingly, to mock the foolishness of my sentimentality.
Labels: THE P-oignant Moments
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Only Takes a Chocolate Bar to sum it up
It was exactly five weeks ago that Nano left my place suddenly and curtailed his two nights’ stay with me. I never saw him again.
That Thursday afternoon, we went out for lunch and went to the shopping mall to get him a toothbrush. Walking hand in hand, we strolled past a lady who was handing out free chocolate bars as a new product launch. She gave each of us a bar.
“Why are they giving us free chocolates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think it’s a promotion for this new brand.”
As Forest Gump's mum puts it, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."
I sure didn't see it coming.
*****
When we got home, he suddenly decided that he had to leave.
He would stay for another hour and then he would leave at 4pm.
*****
I saw him off while he boarded the train.
We kissed and then I blew him one last kiss as the door closed between us.
Then I got home.
The chocolate bar was there sitting on my coffee table.
I picked it up and examined it.
Fling- that’s the name of the chocolate bar.
We could well have been the poster boy and girl for the marketing campaign.
It was exactly five weeks ago that Nano left my place suddenly and curtailed his two nights’ stay with me. I never saw him again.
That Thursday afternoon, we went out for lunch and went to the shopping mall to get him a toothbrush. Walking hand in hand, we strolled past a lady who was handing out free chocolate bars as a new product launch. She gave each of us a bar.
“Why are they giving us free chocolates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think it’s a promotion for this new brand.”
As Forest Gump's mum puts it, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."
I sure didn't see it coming.
*****
When we got home, he suddenly decided that he had to leave.
He would stay for another hour and then he would leave at 4pm.
*****
I saw him off while he boarded the train.
We kissed and then I blew him one last kiss as the door closed between us.
Then I got home.
The chocolate bar was there sitting on my coffee table.
I picked it up and examined it.
Fling- that’s the name of the chocolate bar.
We could well have been the poster boy and girl for the marketing campaign.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Introspection
"But still I am a dilettante. It could be said that I am playing at something that Martin lives. Sometimes I have the feeling that the whole of my polygamous life is a consequence of nothing but my imitation of other men; although I am not denying that I have taken a liking to this imitation. But I cannot rid myself of the feeling that in this liking there remains, all the same, something entirely free, playful, and revocable, something that characterizes visits to art galleries or countries, something not submitted to the unconditional imperative I have suspected behind Martin’s erotic life.”
- “The Golden Apple of Eternal Desires”, Laughable Loves, Milan Kundera
"But still I am a dilettante. It could be said that I am playing at something that Martin lives. Sometimes I have the feeling that the whole of my polygamous life is a consequence of nothing but my imitation of other men; although I am not denying that I have taken a liking to this imitation. But I cannot rid myself of the feeling that in this liking there remains, all the same, something entirely free, playful, and revocable, something that characterizes visits to art galleries or countries, something not submitted to the unconditional imperative I have suspected behind Martin’s erotic life.”
- “The Golden Apple of Eternal Desires”, Laughable Loves, Milan Kundera
