CB I Hate Perfume's Winter 1972

CB I Hate Perfume #102 Winter 1972

Snow, snow, snow.  It keeps snowing here, like the winters I remember from my childhood.  In winter, we often don spicy scents, heavy like comfort food, slow to travel in the cold air.  Especially around the holidays, these spicy scents are wonderful.  Yet, there's a certain mood on these cold, quiet, snowy nights, after the holidays but before spring,  where the only scent I want is #102 Winter 1972, from the CB Secret History Series.  CB describes it as:

A field of untouched new fallen snow, hand knit woolen mittens covered with frost, a hint of frozen forest & sleeping earth

In Burning Leaves, the cold air is negative space in which the harmony of fire and maple leaves shine.  In Winter 1972, it is simply the negative space, cold and minimal and gorgeous.  There is a hint of wool, and a hint of earth, and everything else is just winter.  It is a love letter to that time of the year that CB describes as "a time to rest, a time to remember and to look forward... a quiet time to watch the stars and have hope."  

Walden Pond frozen over

The festive scents of winter- spices, Christmas trees, fires- are all very romantic, but there is something incredibly underrated about the stark beauty of winter.  Everything becomes black and white and silent.  There is an intimacy to be felt with both your own thoughts and with the starry night sky.

This scent is part of the CB Secret History Series, or scents made in reference to a particular memory of the perfumer.  Yet these memories remain secret, because scent cannot explain, it can only evoke.  CB describes the way these Secret History scents function with a Joseph Conrad quote, "we live as we dream: alone.”  In a culture where self-documentation and status updates are so important, these scents remind us of what can never really be shared.  The memory of a winter in 1972 is hidden from me, but in this beautiful, blank scent my own secret history emerges.

It's been quite some time since I remember Walden Pond freezing over completely.  The past few winters have been inconsistent, with record-breaking snowstorms being followed by weeks of 60 degree weather.  Weather has generally become warmer and more erratic here.  Yet this fall and winter were perfect, living up to every bit of nostalgia I have for New England.  Fiery fall foliage followed by a white Christmas followed by a cold, snowy winter.

My mom and I went to walk at Walden Pond, as we did during the fall, but now we could walk straight across it.  I was nervous though, because I've seen too many PSAs about children falling through ice and sinking in their heavy winter clothes to a frozen death.  I also have a very vivid imagination.

At certain points, where the sun had warmed the foot prints, the ice had melted a little.  I stopped at each one, pointing out the water as proof that the ice was melting.  My mom carefully checked each one, testing it with her mitten and then proclaiming, "It's frozen solid!".  It was as if I was still a child who needed to be comforted by her absolute certainty.  It was so sweet that I kept doing it even though I knew the pond was frozen, playing the child so my mom could play her role.

In the distance, you can see the cabin on the edge of the beach, where Walden Pond is open for swimming in the summer.  I think the only reason I ever leave New England is so that I can come back.