Scent mapping

Does anyone else map out the writing of their books with mnemonic devices? Each of my novels has had an associated fragrance, usually via a scented candle, that acts as a device to immerse me me in my story as soon as the candle is lit. For October, I used a Yankee Candle Company candle in "Spiced Pumpkin," which deftly caught the Halloween season in my mind. For Wild Fell, my friend Elliot gifted me a French candle that called to mind the vast, dim interior of a cathedral during candlelit mass. In the case of Enter, Night I used sealed, unopened 70s-era vintage perfumes that recalled the era, and dabbed them on the lightbulbs in my office, including the obvious teenage fragrances, like Love's Baby Soft and vintage Chantilly by Houbigant (thanks, Ebay) partially when it came to writing the characters of Christina and her daughter, Morgan. The candle for the new novel is Voluspa's "Sake Lemon Flower." I purchased three of them, which will hopefully see me through the entire writing. The novel is set in the early 80s and the present day, so the scent is clean and modern, and sensuous without being overpowering. Next to music (each of the novels have their own writing soundtracks, too) nothing links me more tightly to memory, and narrative, than scent.

David Moss (1924-2021)

Last weekend, we lost David Moss at the age of 96. He was the father of my big sister, Nancy, whom some of you know from my books and essays. I met Dave when I was 11 or 12 in Geneva, where our two families were living. He was an American executive who travelled a great deal, and he was kind to this odd Canadian boy he frequently found in his house, who seemed surgically attached to his eldest daughter. I think I amused him, in the nicest possible sense. He had a patrician Gregory Peck quality, and, together, he and his wife Betsy radiated a particular sort of American glamour that might have been written by John Cheever; like a happier, expat version of the New Canaan, Connecticut families in Ang Lee's film of Rick Moody's The Ice Storm. Decades later in 1992, at Nancy's wedding in New Hampshire (shown here), I was her husband's best man. The father of the bride and I were able to spend some time as two adult men, albeit of different generations, and even in the midst of a hectic wedding weekend we had some good, deep talks. I came away with an adult's sense that he was a very, very good man, the kind worth emulating. The last time I saw Dave was more than a decade later at his home in Manchester-by-the-Sea. I won't even try to guess the date, which seems both like yesterday and a century ago. Among other things, I remember, we had a discussion about the ships that left England for Plymouth Colony in the early 17th century. He was delighted that I knew the Arbella, which sailed into what is now known as Salem Harbour in 1630, was the ship that carried the new colony's precious library. David Moss loved his daughters, he loved his grandchildren, and he probably knew, more often than not, that he was the most dashing man in any given room. He wore it lightly and gracefully and, as I remember, seemed to put that light on others instead of shining it on himself. I'm privileged to have known him through Nancy, and I mourn with her, and with her sisters, as well as with Dave's first wife, Betsy, all of whom I still consider family 47 years after we were all first brought together. Fate can be a capricious, often cruel mistress, but she is occasionally also a bestower of great blessings. Loving these people has been among those bestowed on me. Rest in peace, Dave, and comfort to those who loved you.

[Photo, viewer's L-R: Nancy's late son M. J. whom we lost last year; Dave; Nancy's husband, Jay; me, 1992]