my bay rum shattered
One of the great pleasures of being a man is Bay Rum. I remember my uncle Howard smelled of it. I never remember knowing what it was till he was older and couldn't shop and we had to pick up some for him. Ah, that's what that fragrance is! When I moved into his house many years later, I put my Bay Rum where he had put his.
Mine was Dominica Double-Distilled Bay Rum, made by A & C Shillingford & Co., and given to me by Jeff Walker. (I believe he got it from the J. Peterman Catalogue, which indeed was very real and a delight.) I've had that same bottle all these years — 20 years?! — refilled many times, the new potion always decanted into the older, cooler bottle. (Shillingford's name no longer appears on the bottles, probably because of some depressing corporate merger.)
And now it's broken.
Another bottle had broken this summer: a few minutes after Catherine's water broke, we were both quite calm and unpanicky, getting ready for the hospital, when I reached into the cabinet to get the overnight kit, and brought down a (nearly empty) bottle of YSL, crashing on the tiles and filling the whole house with an intoxicating sweet elixir. (Gotta get some more of that stuff.) Today, I was rummaging around for something, and Greta called out in dismay and anguish, and — once again without any feeling of agitation or anything but sheer clumsiness — I hit the cork and the bottle came down.
It's one of Catherine's favorite scents, and it carries a whole civilization of meanings for me. The search begins for a new one: it's fairly common to get at the average drug store, and Dominica is easy to order online. But. No cork. No Shillingford. No more of the gathered dregs of 20 years dancing around the bottom, no more of the stained and yellowed and worn label that has accompanied me through my entire adulthood.
Looking back on what I've written here, it does seem a bit oversentimental: after all, this isn't a huge loss, not much of a loss at all. I really don't feel torn and bummed about it, like I did about the loss of our wedding gifts to ourselves. But it's a dang drag.
Mine was Dominica Double-Distilled Bay Rum, made by A & C Shillingford & Co., and given to me by Jeff Walker. (I believe he got it from the J. Peterman Catalogue, which indeed was very real and a delight.) I've had that same bottle all these years — 20 years?! — refilled many times, the new potion always decanted into the older, cooler bottle. (Shillingford's name no longer appears on the bottles, probably because of some depressing corporate merger.)
And now it's broken.
Another bottle had broken this summer: a few minutes after Catherine's water broke, we were both quite calm and unpanicky, getting ready for the hospital, when I reached into the cabinet to get the overnight kit, and brought down a (nearly empty) bottle of YSL, crashing on the tiles and filling the whole house with an intoxicating sweet elixir. (Gotta get some more of that stuff.) Today, I was rummaging around for something, and Greta called out in dismay and anguish, and — once again without any feeling of agitation or anything but sheer clumsiness — I hit the cork and the bottle came down.
It's one of Catherine's favorite scents, and it carries a whole civilization of meanings for me. The search begins for a new one: it's fairly common to get at the average drug store, and Dominica is easy to order online. But. No cork. No Shillingford. No more of the gathered dregs of 20 years dancing around the bottom, no more of the stained and yellowed and worn label that has accompanied me through my entire adulthood.
Looking back on what I've written here, it does seem a bit oversentimental: after all, this isn't a huge loss, not much of a loss at all. I really don't feel torn and bummed about it, like I did about the loss of our wedding gifts to ourselves. But it's a dang drag.
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