Last year, I was featured on eaulalabygenevieve's Shelfie Sunday, and I was delighted to share a bit about my collection. This June, I was invited back to reflect upon what may have changed over the past year! There's a version of collecting that's really about proving something β to yourself, to whoever looks at your shelf, to the concept of yourself as a person with interesting taste. I've done that version. I know what it feels like. The question I'm sitting with now is different: not what do I want to add, but what is this practice actually for. What I keep coming back to is the finding, the thing inside a scent that is specifically, irreducibly mine to locate, the connection nobody else would make, a door nobody else would think to open, a room nobody else would know to look for, the poem nobody else could write. There's always something in there that belongs to me specifically, something only I can find. My collection is not only the occasion for the finding of this thing, but the devoted celebration of it!
