Rose Atlantic

There is no place I’d rather be in the summer than by the ocean in New England. Marblehead, Maine, Phillips Beach in Swampscott, Nantucket, to name a few.

It’s hot but the sea breeze brings in cool salted air by the late afternoon. The cloudless sky looks east over the Atlantic. Seagulls hang high over cutters, Sloops, and Scoonahs (real spelling Schooner). The borders of the beachhead are covered in bushes of single petaled rosa rugosa. The musk rose. So fresh and purple fruity in the summer sun. By late summer the rose hips are bright tomato red. They are sour and filled with seeds. They hang heavy over the shiny deep green leaves. Honeysuckle, black raspberry, and other vines intertwine amongst the dune grass.

There is so much music associated with this time of year. Summer jams. Soul music. The sweet syrup of Sam Cooke, the gruff scrawl of Otis. Doo-wop. And the dinky organ of Sinatra’s “Summer Wind.” I went to day camp on an island. Every morning we boarded a ferryboat with 2 floors (The Hannah Glover). We sang songs the whole way out. On the way home, they would blast “The Summer Wind” and everyone would belt out the words. “My fickle friend!” was the height.

This scent isn’t just a rose. It has the ocean, delicate petals, the green stem, the waxy leaves, and the fresh idyllic powder of summertime. It is an everyday perfume.