To Bear Freedom with James Baldwin

“I have met only a very few people who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear. It can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation…We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.”

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James Baldwin’s inspired scent takes you to a late Saturday afternoon, savoring a post-dinner coffee at a small Café in Paris, at the beginning of Spring. The bottom notes of Saffron, Sandalwood, Cedar, Almond and Peppercorn ground you into the leathery armchair across from him. After the last sip, you take a lazy stroll along the Latin Quarter, dipping in and out of independent bookstores that smell of Shea, Amber, Lily of the Valley, and Ylang Ylang, all middle notes of this scent. You also sift through street book vendors’ collections, evoking the dreamy feeling of reading old books, as you’re cocooned in the top notes of Palo Santo, Cardamom, Ozone, and Green Leaves. You dance and tip jazz musicians near women that smelled like Violets, Roses, Smoke, and Carnations. 

As you promenade through the streets of Paris, you discuss exile and migration, the limits of gender and orientation, artists and chaos, white hegemony, capitalism, and how much I despise France.