#35: Moving Forward by Looking Back
Plus an update about this newsletter (scroll to the bottom!)
My favorite perfume smells like 2014, each spray a portal to the dorm room I called home for a summer while living in Copenhagen. It was there that I doused my shirts with a travel-sized tube of Chloé because I couldn’t figure out how to use the washing machine three floors down in the basement. Not my finest moment, I know.
But to this day, the honey-sweet floral scent of that perfume brings me back to a summer of early-twenties-idiocy, of growing pains and self-discovery. And even today, after almost a decade of spraying that same fragrance on my neck and wrists, I still catch a whiff of a younger me.
The perfume remains one of the most stark examples of sensory nostalgia in my life. I’m amazed how a feeling can be unlocked through sight or sound or smell. It’s like getting hit with a gust of wind—invisible, but enough to make me stumble and search for my footing.
In the spirit of this feeling, here are a few of my favorite bouts of sense-based memory:
Now for some housekeeping: I’m adding a monthly bonus newsletter that will feature recommendations and my favorite things from that month (2012 Youtube called and they want their concept back!!!). It’ll go out at the end of each month to paying subscribers and my Patreon community (that’s to say, you do not need to support me on Patreon and Substack; this content will be available in both places). The rest of the newsletter will remain free to read. If you are interested in receiving the bonus newsletter but don’t have the financial means to do so, please email me directly; I will be comping 10 paid subscriptions a month, no questions asked.
Okay! That’s all! I hope you smell or see or hear something today that brings you back to a comforting moment! Bye!