OK, I am deathly allergic to strawberries.
I was not always this way; however over the past ten years, certain times of the growing season, I cannot walk into the fresh produce section.
I used to be able to eat them. Not frequently, but occasionally. When I started to get very dizzy from them, I stopped eating them, but would purchase them for my family.
I would then use rubber gloves and a knife and fork to cut them up and wash them.
But it has gotten so bad, I cannot stand in line behind someone buying them. Or someone two or three people ahead of me in line, who is buying them.
I cannot buy other berries --which I am NOT allergic to – if the produce department places them next to the strawberries.
I have to watch when my friend uses her cherry lip gloss, because I know there is strawberry in the mixture. I have a reaction to the smell every time she wears it!
And as I said before, if the aroma/odor is very pungent – I can’t enter a store or the produce section.
So that’s the bad.
The good is, I have one old small vial of a perfume from when I was 12 (!). It is a no-name brand I found somewhere – I literally found it on a bench or in a park, as if it had fallen out of someone’s purse.
This scent I used every summer growing up. It lasted nearly ten years. It is somewhat reminiscent of an old sunscreen / beachy scent. Since it never had a label, I could not replace it!!!
But EVERY time I passed a Body Shoppe /Bath and Body Works / hippie style store, I would go in, hoping beyond hope this scent would be resurrected. I can’t tell you how many black light poster shops /head shops / natural food stores / essential oil shops I walked thru just looking --sniffing – for a replacement.
Fast forward 35 years, to about 8 years ago. Some of you know our extended family has an old farmhouse in the Catskill Mtns. It’s in the same county as Woodstock – yes THAT Woodstock – which is not actually where the concert was held. But it is a touristy, hippie destination for folks coming up from the city, and it is quite the artists’ haven.
Great bumper sticker first seen there:
“Jesus is coming! LOOK BUSY!!”
Todd Rudgren has his house and professional studio in nearby Bearsville.
So sauntering down the Main Street of Woodstock, I find a cute hippie-thread, leather emporium. Lots of candles and incense, too.
And there is where I found the replacement.
Wild Rose brand, “Rain”.
Research told me it was manufactured in a nearby town in New York, and it is sold under various labels.
I bought two bottles that day, and have returned to buy several more. They sit alongside the original. Which only has vapors now. But this scent transports me every time.
