Grief + Growth

The Scents I Reached For the Most While Sick (When What I Really Wanted Was My Mom) There’s a very specific kind of vulnerability that comes with being sick. The kind that slows everything down. The kind that makes even small tasks feel heavy. The kind that, if you’re honest, makes you want your mom. And while I have a home filled with love — a family who stepped in, carried the weight, kept things moving while I rested, coughed, and generally felt like a shell of myself — th

Some fragrances draw you in because of their scent. Some, because of their bottles. Others, because of how they make you feel. Lorenzo Pazzaglia had me at all three. If you know me, you know owls are a thing in our family—a sort of spirit animal, if you will. During Covid, when we were all isolated and digging deep for ways to stay connected (and sane) with our kids, my mom and my son—then just 7 years old—started an “Owl Diary.” A homemade encyclopedia of all things owls.

Some recipes are instructions. Some are legacy. Madam X — is pure legacy. My mom found the recipe in a newspaper sometime in the late 1970s. She cut it out — carefully — and tucked it away. No Pinterest board. No blog. No five-star review. Just black and white print and instinct. The cake was called Madam X — like the letter X — which felt mysterious and dramatic and slightly glamorous. Fitting, honestly. Because this cake had presence.

When he gave me the gift, there was a softness to it — a kind of hopeful confusion around timing. He thought the masterclass was happening sooner. He talked about it as if it were just around the corner. “I can’t wait to hear all about it,” he said. I smiled. I thanked him. I promised him I would tell him everything. But inside, I knew.

This morning, while doing something as ordinary as switching my purse from fall to winter mode, I found myself holding a memory I hadn’t touched in years. A black Jimmy Choo bag — sleek, structured, quietly glamorous — gifted to me by my mom sometime in 2007. The kind of gift that, yes, absolutely came with a comma in the price tag. My colleagues at the time used to joke that it was my “ comma bag ,” and honestly? They weren’t wrong. It was extravagant. Bougie, even. And my

A creamy iris chai for the season—and for the soul. Sometimes fragrance pairings feel accidental. Others feel intuitive. And then there are the rare combinations that feel… meant to be . I don’t know why I reached for these two particular fragrances, but I’m glad it did. That’s what happened when I started layering Jovoy Remember Me with Houbigant Iris des Champs . On their own, they’re beautiful. Together, they’re something deeper—almost like the name and the note found

There are some objects that stop being objects. They become something else entirely —a feeling, a memory, a tether. This vase is that for me. A row of delicate glass tubes held in a simple gold frame — elegant, understated, timeless. Quintessentially my mom. It lived at the center of her dining table for years, catching light, catching petals, catching moments. Now it lives in my home. On my sideboard. In the shifting light of east- and south-facing windows. And every time I

Seven Iris Scents, One Grief Journey, and the Quiet Ways Scent Keeps Us Connected I’ve been spending time with iris again—the flower, the note, and the man who unexpectedly led me to it.

These days I am feeling rather vanilla, in fragrance and in mood. There’s a quietness to me lately — a soft, muted version of myself. I’ve been calling it feeling very vanilla. Not boring, not bland… just simple. Quiet and subdued. The fragrance equivalent of sitting in your own silence. It’s that feeling when your routines become pared down to the essentials, when “good enough” becomes the goal, when your mind doesn’t want fireworks, it wants familiarity. I guess I have van

The scent that met me where memory and modernity collide. It’s everything I needed it to be. My Karkey, The Duchess A few weeks ago I walked into the department store the other day fully prepared to buy Guerlain’s iconic Shalimar . My grandmother’s signature scent. A fragrance woven into some of my earliest sensory memories. I could practically see her vanity — her powders, her cold creams, the soft clatter of her gold charm bracelet — and that emblematic bottle of Shalimar t

Grief has a funny way of showing up in unexpected places. For me, lately, it’s been showing up in scent. I can’t take credit for the title — Mon Thoughts on Mon Guerlain — I read it somewhere, but I loved the scent-iment 😉. And honestly, it fits this story perfectly. I was in a department store the other day, planning to buy Guerlain’s Shalimar. Not because I adore the scent, but because it’s iconic — and because it reminds me of my Karkey. Yes, you read that correctly. K

The last few weeks have been a blur and I am just now coming up for air. In my fog of returning home I was opening packages and this gorgeous Deluxe Box Set from DS & DURGA had arrived as a gift. 🙏 What a beautiful surprise to unbox at a time where I was feeling so low. Exploring these miniature perfumes was just the distraction my grief needed in that moment. A standout for me was Radio Bombay - the way it burst into my senses with its woodsy, iris and creamy coconut textu

11/03/2012 I remember this moment like it was yesterday. Right before the doors opened and you began walking me down the aisle- it was just you and me inside the church vestibule. We were giggling with nervous energy and you were saying “this really should be your father”, literally right up until the moment you handed me off to Pops, you questioned if you belonged there. GeeGee, you were my father too. That’s why you did stand in that tiny church vestibule with me. For nearl

The darkest part of grief isn’t always the moment someone dies…it’s what happens after. Since my stepdad took his final breath on October 22nd, I haven’t felt anything. I haven’t wanted to feel. I still don’t. But that silence inside me isn’t sustainable. I have children. A spouse. A business. Commitments that don’t wait for grief.

Scent, like us, changes with mood, time, temperature, and tenderness. And if there’s one fragrance note that feels like home to me, it’s vanilla. Warm, familiar, and endlessly shape-shifting — it’s one of those scents that never gets old yet never smells quite the same twice. Vanilla can be cozy or bold, creamy or woodsy, airy or sultry. It’s a shapeshifter — a scent that evolves with mood, temperature, and time of year. And understanding how it shifts means you can create

A story about timing, memory, and the ways love shows up when we least expect it. Sometimes the universe leads you into exactly the right place, at exactly the right time — even if you think you’re just killing time before an event.

What if we welcomed grief like a soft, oversized sweatshirt instead of pushing it away? What if we wore it openly — in words, in tears over coffee, in laughter while telling old stories — instead of tucking it into the shadows?

Grief is part of my DNA. It's not just something that happened to me - it's how I became Sooo Human.

Looking back, skincare wasn’t just something my mom did. It was something she loved.

Mom's 75th Redo Momma, I can’t believe the 7th marked a month since you left your heavenly body. These last few weeks have felt like the longest of my life. Learning to navigate my life without your physical presence has been the hardest challenge of my life. Going from speaking every day to never hearing your voice again has been the hardest day to day to accept. We talk about you everyday and I start and end my day with a blessing for your new eternal life to be one of pea