Lavender

I was reading a college friend's blog this morning while watching others pass around me in Book End Cafe on Pearl St. Mall, and he used a quote that has landed me found several times in my life:

Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
— Henry Thoreau

Pat moved on to talk about his realization of need for his prose and writing to be a celebration of his connections to others, not himself as an island . This thought immediately crumbled and washed away many thoughts of mine behind my blog as well. While I seek to find the truth, beauty, and clarity in this world, I often draw on self-realization, which normally have to do with the natural world surrounding me, and while I hope that my reflections and observations will encourage others seek out similar observations, I am somehow failing to truly encourage others to seek out such beauty, truth and clarity for themselves.

No one's writing is an island, for we all are a product of our environment. We are continually being reinvented, replenished, redefined by everyone that surrounds us, and it is wrong for me to treat my writing with such ownership. It has indeed remained my Ego Island for the past months.

And while I read Pat's journal and distractedly looked around to observe the masses swirling around me, the aroma of lavender invaded. I am obsessed with this smell. I have not yet figured out if this obsession has a deep seed in my childhood, for this scent never wafted the forests of Pennsylvania, yet out here in Boulder it is common for someone to pass by leaving an organically fragrant plume of lavender in their wake.

My ties to this scent may have developed recently from a massage oil Sara and I have, but I do not yet know. All I know is that when I smell this scent, I am completely distracted as though this scent is a song from the sirens to my sinuses. There is a carnal depth within this scent that hints at a certain closeness to all my surroundings, as if I was at once lying in bed with all of my surroundings. My eyes dart around as my nose tests the air like some bird dog seeking out the source, and I am drawn to that person, plant, or listless room decoration as though under a psychedelic haze, I believe there is some distant connection I must come to understand between us. Yet, just as the scent dissipates I return to awareness of my surroundings, no longer feeling the unity within the previous moment.

Perhaps this helps me realize why Sara and I recently bought a lavender oil to put on ourselves each day. I want to constantly smell this oil, if only to continually flirt within these feelings of deeper connection to my surroundings, and hopefully some way which I have yet to realize, this will help what I write to become more inclusive.