A midnight post to ring in the autumn, an amuse-bouche to whet the appetite, and a tantalizing tango to set the scene to all that follows, this is how fall begins on our little blog. Slipping in during the night, autumn is ephemeral as fragrance. Unseen and untouchable, it can only be sensed by the nose – scent its own powerful purveyor of its presence, maker of memories, and lover of lore.
Let’s have a tango then, seducing our partners with a fiery dance of flames…
Won’t you dance me into autumn?
Can you think of anything more divine than a dance into the fall?
‘La Cumparsita’ translates as ‘little street procession’ and the song is one of the most recognized tangos in the world. It plays a magical part in the queasy New Year’s Eve scene from ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in which Norma Desmond makes her ill-fated romantic play for a much-younger Joe Gillis, only to be met with his cold dismissal. What happens to all the love that goes unreturned? That’s a question this blog has never been able to truly answer.
Suzie and I were browsing at Muji on our recent weekend in Boston (I needed an essential oil for the bedroom diffuser, and they had a lovely rose scent that worked out well) and this song came on ~ one of those moments when it takes a while to place the music and the memory. At first it was disconcerting to hear, as I couldn’t quite figure it out; the memory at fifty is not the same memory and instant-recall of thirty.
As I paused to listen it slowly came back to me, and the vision of Norma Desmond sweeping about the tiled dance-floor as her little band played in the corner materialized in my head. She wanted only to be loved, and it didn’t matter who ~ a paramour, an audience, a pet monkey ~ she wanted only to be loved.
And so we dance, carried on the wings of a swoony fragrance tinged with oud ~ some echo from the past, some ping from the future ~ and a little hint at our fall theme, coming up in the next post…
