Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Pain of Lost Things

Did you ever find a product that you really loved, that really worked for you, and then it was discontinued? My husband and I both have scents that were once our signature perfumes--his was a Crabtree and Evelyn Cologne that I bought him when we were married; mine was a Laura Ashley perfume that I simply loved. Both were aromatherapy of the highest order. Neither is now available, even on Ebay. I did find one tiny bottle of my husband's lost cologne somewhere in England--just a few ounces for two hundred and fifty dollars. Too much of an indulgence, I'm afraid, and yet I was tempted to claim that last bottle, as if it were the Holy Grail.

I'm not sure why lost things are so compelling, why I feel almost hurt by their unavailability. I suppose, as with a lot of things, that they are blended in with my nostalgia for times past. Jeff's cologne brings back images of our honeymoon; mine elicits memories of my early career.

They say that smell is the sense most connected to memory, and perhaps that's another reason why the loss of those aromas rankles.

Am I alone in this, or are there things you miss that you can no longer get?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For years, recalling my childhood, I mourned the demise of Fizzies. Then they brought them back temporarily and I found that my tastes had changed!

Mostly, the things I can longer find seem to be food or drink. If Mary and I find something we like at the grocery it is soon discontinued. A brand of hot ginger ale, for example, many varieties of vegetarian products.

Then there was the India Pale Ale with a rebus under each bottle cap!

Julia Buckley said...

And those all sound wonderful because they're so distinctive. I wonder if the world of sales finds that when they dare to be distinctive, they don't get a big enough profit, and so those wonderful ideas go by the wayside . . .