This afternoon Alexis and I were talking about how bodies will be flying off bikes, bikes sliding across the pavement, because of how beautiful the jasmine smells.
The scent is precious because it’s fleeting, and also because it’s good. Alexis is leaving soon, and the jasmine essentially her proxy.
At the end of March, Sam said “congratulations” and put white roses on my desk, their scent adding to a dazzling experience of looking through migraine visuals into a last-second grant application, which Juho kindly hand-delivered minutes later in Finland.
At the apex of lilacs in April, Hon and I were the only people in the design department not yet in Milan. The spring bloom was so beautiful it almost made me weep as we biked silently to mensa. A week later, back from Salonè Mobile, they were gone.
Sam is in the studio now and with him came giant vases of lilies. When we walked up the stairs at the same time today I thought about commenting on how the olfactory landscape is always nice when he’s around.
I’ve been ambiently nervous about my future, overwhelmed by the beauty of the people and flowers that surround me, and how all things are fleeting and unknown. I was thinking about all this while riding my bike home. Then I got hit by a car.