'Traveling the Perfumed Road' for September VIE

“This summer, the scent of the lilies made me revisit the 240-year-old house and 150-year-old spirits, reminisce about their antics, and think of the B&B I always wanted to run — minus the ghosts free to go wherever and do whatever they please, night and day.

Recently, other scents take me places too. The smell of scotch inevitably reminds me of my father. When I was a young girl in Somalia, Jesse Owens came over to our house. My father introduced Mr. Owens as the fastest man in the world, and I thought, No way! He is too old. Jesse and my father sat down with a scotch and water, because that’s what my father drank ever night. I love thinking of the two elegant men drinking scotch together — one a spy and the other a runner — men of a certain time, intelligence, and seasoning, choosing scotch as their cocktail. The type of scotch they chose was part of their curation, just like the music they listened to, the books they read and the roads they traveled.

If it seems like I am just hanging out with spirits in the time of Covid, that is not entirely true. I do more than drink scotch and sniff ginger lilies….”

Read more about the power and persuasion of scent in the latest issue of VIE Magazine, HERE!