Roses represent life and death. They adorn coffins and newborn's bedrooms. Snag a finger on a thorn and you bleed, but make it to the top and you get to the heart of the flower and benefit from its growth. But a rose without a scent? Why that's like a violin without strings! I think this world has become so mass-produced that it is even taking the most natural things away from nature.

Dear Ether, 

I went into a florist and saw the most delightful array of roses.  Crimson reds with blackened borders.  Blush pinks that looked the same shade as ballerina’s tutus.  Yellow the color of custard. White’s purer than the fluffiest cloud.  I touched their delicate petals and their texture was fragile but strong enough to withstand just enough pressure to let my fingertips glide along their ridges.  Long green stems with glistening, emerald colored leaves were placed amongst yellowed thorns.  

And, sticking my nose into this magnificent array of beauty—-I smelled nothing.  I expected to be hit with glistening florals, sparkly citrus and mind-blowing musks.  But all I smelled was an icy-wet odor of stale refrigeration and wet grass.  What a horrible illusion these beautiful sirens were!  

I remember my summers in England and Los Angeles.  The wild roses blossoming madly on the sides of roads or in people’s gardens.  The tea roses omitting their sweet smell as they basked in the sun.  The giants heads of other varieties blowing in the wind and the breeze capturing their heavenly headiness and just closing my eyes and taking it all in. 

I remember my mother bought me my first fragrance when I was a little girl.  It was very cheap—and simply called “Tea Rose” by a no name perfume company.  I LOVED it.  It captured everything that I thought a rose should be in a little bottle. I used to dab it on my wrist every night before bed and let it lull me to sleep dreaming of a madman’s trellis filled with roses and me standing under it’s canopy sniffing its fantastical fumes.  

And, you sure as hell bet that when I went to Borough Market in London for the first time, I bought rose flavored ice cream.  And my first purchase from Colombia Road market in Shoreditch—a dozen long-stem red roses that were so perfectly formed they looked like tea cups!  

My first fragrance from Jo Malone (on of my favorite perfumers) was Red Roses Cologne and for my senior prom I wore real baby blossoms woven through my bun to match my dress.  

So, when I went into this florist, seeing my old, dear friends, with no smell, I was so sad to see that they had been created in a hybrid hothouse, mass-produced for their looks.  Did no one care about scent anymore?  I asked the florist, and she said that garden roses didn’t last as long, were much more fragile and didn’t come in the varieties that the mass produced ones did.  She said refrigeration and picking them too quickly stole their aroma.  She told me that very upscale boutique florists had magnificent smelling collections and that they could be special ordered—but for a hefty price. 

The next day I went to a local garden center and perused their rose section.  Ahhh, what wonderful names they have come up with.  If you’ve ever visited the rose garden in June in Greenwich Park in England I’d recommend it.  It smells magnificent and they too, have fabulous names for their varieties.  I decided on a stunning sterling silver rose bush.  The owner promised that over time it would produce fragrant, sweet smelling roses that would have full heads and would be a glamorous shade of silvery-purple.  

As my plant was being loaded into my car I felt like I was adding another rose into the world that gave the air some scent—some beauty.  That, especially in Los Angeles, where everything is so concrete and polluted, I wanted to stick my nose in something natural and beautiful again.  I wanted to close my eyes and have my senses overwhelm me. 

Every rose has it’s thorn, but then again, sometimes it’s worth getting nicked to feel something and reap the reward of its beauty than to not have any experience at all.  

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365