Keys, Finally

I just had keys made.

It’s 20 months after I moved into this apartment. I live in Dubai.

I received keys when I moved in, but only one front door key. Since I arrived in a medical emergency, and didn’t really know anyone here, I hesitated even locking the door at night, in case something happened to me. And I never locked it when I went out, for the same reason. I have a cat.

In fact, twice I was hospitalized, in Abu Dhabi. I Arranged for new friends, whom I didn’t know well, to come care for Professor Pimblebrook, my feline friend. I didn’t really have any valuables, anyway, and certainly nothing that would trump (please excuse the expression) my animal stuck inside alone with no food, and scared. He already has separation anxiety.

In Muscat, he suddenly appeared in the back yard. I think he was thrown out of a car. He managed to get into the kitchen and stayed 6 weeks without budging, skinny and stinking, terrified. Hassan fed him, gave him a litter box in the corner, and sat with him, playing,  every night after work. The Professor was lucky. And three years later we live in Dubai together. But he’s still scared when he’s alone. He’s an Arabian Mau.

I have literally never locked my door. Not one time. Today, because now I have another medical emergency, but a scheduled one this time, and in America, I will leave someone here to stay with him, and she will definitely want a key. And it’s time. The neighbor I relied on is moving (although not too far). I will give one to her, too. And now I know more people, after nearly two years.

I’ve had my homes broken into in other places: Santa Barbara, Salalah. But here in Dubai we got lucky.  

Even so, it was worth the risk when I considered the possible consequences, of my innocent friend, alone, scared and starving. And The UAE is known for its safety. Well done, I say.

Everything comes to an end, eventually. And this spell here, in these circumstances, is no exception.  We shall see what happens next.

Tits Again!

Tits again!

Before you roll your eyes, let me offer a caveat.

As a somewhat normal human, I had somewhat normal breasts, maybe D cup. Not the kind of thing I spent much time thinking about.

In 2016 I got breast cancer—and a mastectomy, later followed by another mastectomy and then chemo. There’s more to this, but I’ll keep it local for now.

“I will not reconstruct” I told myself. “It will be fine to not have these, and I’ll be like an amazon archer”, legendary for cutting off their breasts to better control the bow and arrow. “It’s vanity”, I thought. “no need to go to all the trouble for these. It’ll be fine, better even without these things.” And so on.

So there I was, tits gone, flat chested, none of my clothes fit, and my body was misshapen. Where I once had an hourglass figure, now I had a pear, inflated further by the ACT chemo. Subtly, people were not as nice to me, either. I was astonished at just how many things changed. I know someone will argue that, but don’t. It’s an energy thing. I was shocked to find I did care, and quite a bit.

I felt as though I were drowning in weird horror, and the breast amputation was only part of it but it was a fixable part.

Due to a childhood cancer and chest radiation in the 1980s, I couldn’t accept any of the normal reconstructions, and yes, I tried. It was a mess. So I had the incredibly complicated and difficult latissimus dorsi flap—bilateral. A 13 hour surgery where they cut the lats in half, wrapped them around to the front and filled the space with fat. It’s insane, actually. The surgeon was very happy that he’d cut part of my tattoo and resewn it on the front, in what he considers a balanced way. Sure.

God bless medical school because someone like this needs an outlet for his cutting passions. So cancer reconstruction is a perfect choice.

This surgery was in 2018, and “cleaned up” in 2019. I had hellish things to deal with in Oman, and so my healing was slower than it would have been with support, and medical care. But I eventually healed in a way.

I’ve been to buy bras a few times, and it’s always stressful and depressing. My body shape, the “breasts,” all of it. A big yuck to the whole ritual, even though, admittedly, it got better over time.

But now, finally, in 2024, I’m in another place, and finally rehabbing properly, and pilates, etc, all of it.

I went yesterday, and got real bras, and pretty, and even with cleavage, and cleavage covers my heart surgery scar—another story for another time-and a little uplift means I now look normal. Hourglass. Finally. Lost a ton of weight and still in process. And now happy with my chest.

Lots of women (with intact bodies) tell me they wouldn’t choose reconstruction because of this or that. It’s a very easy thing to feel superior about. But let me tell you, it’s not helpful or kind to share that sort of thing with your friends who got their breasts lopped off.

You have no idea, believe me.

If you’re a woman who is anywhere along this shitty cancer journey, just remember that it too will pass, and even though the chemo and surgery and radiation might beat the living crap out of you, over and over, after it’s done, your body will come back. That includes all the other, usually littler, things I didn’t mention, too.

I’ll add to this, that I have a different cancer now, or had.

But I’m rocking it, and you will too.

New Everything

The whole thing exploded. Honestly, it was time. I wrote the last post about my valve replacement and so that’s the first thing: I have a new heart. Besides the obvious, physical valve, which came from an animal, thereby bringing my heart rate back down to sinus rhythm, it’s a new heart in every sense. It was quite a “life changing” experience and I hate to write that because it’s an overused term, but it’s true, in every sense. I spent some time dead, although I’m sure people will say it’s not technically dead or whatever, but it’s so. The heart was on a table. And later over 24 hours in a medical coma. I consider that a form of death but i admit I was bummed that I didn’t get to remember any visits to my dead loved ones. I was actually kind of excited about that, but I have no memory of it. I find that I feel clearer, and surer of myself, if that’s possible, and more intent on living authentically, instead of putting up with stuff, and soul sucking or dangerous people, thinking I had to. (I hate that “living authentically'“ phrase too because it’s so overused, and out of context, like “amazing”. But it fits.

I changed countries and cities. For various reasons, Oman became impossible to live in and it did damage to my mental health, as well as physical and emotional health. The reasons are many and this isn’t the place to go into them. But suffice to say, my place as a long time frankincense distiller, and a foreigner, and a stand alone female created some incredible situations. And Oman is going through a period where they need to Omanize everything, despite the aptitude people might have for any position. So they changed a lot of rules and increased fees 10x times and etc etc. Didn’t help. There was also a lot of resentment of foreigners like me. Tourists are still wanted and Oman is a beautiful and safe country to visit on the short-term though.

I was not keen at first, on coming to Dubai, but it seemed to make sense and it’s easier to just fling oneself over the border rather than schlep a container load across the world. But I am thrilled thrilled thrilled to be here. It changed a lot, I think even more so since the pandemic. I have a cute place to live, and Professor Pimblebrook (the orange cat) lives with me and we set up Enfleurage here too, but due to the medical situation, things have gone slowly. We have a big stock of frankincense essential oil here. I changed cars, which really is a big deal. I was driving a mini cooper since 2016, in Santa Barbara and then in Muscat. Too many associations. I just bought a jeep.

I changed my phone number—16 years with the Omani one and I switched my whatsapp to the new, and similar Dubai one last week. That’s actually a huge statement because anyone who lives or lived in the Gulf, gets the connotation immediately.

I threw out a lot of my clothes, and am taking a hard look at how much time I spend tethered to these devices. I have never been too much into “social media” but I’m making an effort to read books, like I used to. And taking classes in non-essential oil things. I’m out walking in my neighborhood at night. Incredible difference between these two places. I don’t understand how two countries can be so different. Dubai has been a constant pleasure so far, with nice surprises around many corners. The food is fantastic—very high quality, efficient, beautiful metro, nice people, politeness, I could go on and on. I never would have thought I’d find a sanctuary in the United Arab Emirates. But it feels more and more like that, especially when I hear about how it is in the US now.

And as my surgeon said, “Your heart is ticking like a Ferrari!”

Sisyphus

New heart, new country, new city, new attitudes, all of it. But first some background.

In 1986 I had a cancer—metastatic melanoma. Huge tumor in my armpit. According to the rule book, you’re supposed to die from this. It was ridiculous. Everyone (except me) was crying: She’s only 22! Bullshit if you ask me. I never did follow orders or expectations very well. But I had to do the treatment, and this was radiation plus an intra-lymphatic immunotherapy from UCLA. But it was the radiation, you see, that came back to bite me so many years later. I guess they knew a side effect would be possible heart damage to the heart, but 30+ years later, none of the original doctors in Santa Barbara were around. And I wasn’t supposed to live very long. Seems about 15-20 years ago, my mitral valve started calcifying. I don’t remember too many symptoms, except that I never felt I was fit enough, even as I earned my black belt in Taekwondo. I just assumed it was cause I older, in my 40s already. A combination of living under high stress in Salalah and the breast cancer in 2016 kicked in the damage. The first time I had the feeling of not being able to breathe I was standing on 23rd St and Broadway in NYC. I was already doing chemo. There was a massive anti-trump rally and I wanted to join it but I simply couldn’t. I had to stop every block or even half block. I assumed it was the chemo.

I mentioned this several times to Sloan Kettering, as they do monitor your heart, but whether they actually bother to read the echocardiograms, I can’t say. They tested me repeatedly, particularly before surgeries, I guess. I had 6 surgeries related to the breast cancer. Over the next few years, this shortness of breath never improved and in fact got worse. I attended the pulmonary lab at NYU and went through the entire rehab. They never looked at my heart, and told me that I was out of shape and needed a personal trainer. Older women will recognize this dismissive behavior. That it could be my heart never crossed my mind.

I kept trying to exercise, but instead of improving, I grew worse over time. I berated myself for not trying hard enough, and figured it came from the reconstruction, which including cutting my lats and wrapping them around my front. Eventually I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs—I had to go one at a time. I couldn’t do anything. Back in Oman I continued to use the gyrotonic and do some yoga daily but nothing improved. Like a frog in the proverbial water pot, I didn’t realize how much this came to guide my life until it was an emergency. Tom came to visit and we went to Dubai, where we were planning to move the company. I went to Kings Hospital Dubai Hills to ask about it. I felt like shit, really really awful. I couldn’t focus on anything or remember what I was doing, peoples names, nothing. All I thought about was how far something was, where to rest, how to make it look like I wasn’t resting. I wasn’t interested in going anywhere or doing anything. I did what I needed to do and went home. Even turning in the bed left me gasping. Not much sleep. My heart would race. That was A fib, which I didn’t know about, really. But I knew by this time there was something seriously wrong. They got it straight away at Kings. Mitral Heart Valve Stenosis. Those doctors were fabulous. My new cardiologist, Dr. Carlos, (if you are Dubai and need a cardiologist,) arranged for me to go the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi and fortunately my insurance covered it. Dr Umar Darr was my surgeon—excellent. I adore him.

In the meantime, I went into heart failure for the next two months before everything could be lined up for surgery. They never told me this, nor about the complications that an untreated mitral valve causes. Thank Heavens. It would have freaked me out. So I had open heart surgery, with end stage heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, and also needed a bypass as the aortic valve was also calcifying. However, my arteries were all fine. It wasn’t a lifestyle thing, it was a direct result of the radiation in 1986.

So they broke my sternum open and took out my heart and put it on a table and worked on it like it was a carburetor. Meanwhile, they packed my chest cavity in ice. This is all stuff I read on the surgical report. No one told me this was going to happen. Thank heavens. I am not a fan of google and anything medical. They kept me in a coma after this for a day or so and then ICU for 8 days. Then the regular hospital for another week. The cardiac team at Cleveland Clinic is stellar. I think there were 30 people in the OR as I went into surgery. I was so grateful I kept bursting into tears whenever I saw my surgeon. All I knew was that I would feel better.

And I do. It’s a bit slow, recovering, and not helped by yet another annoying cancer diagnosis, which required yet another operation, 6 weeks after the heart surgery. Endometrial. I had thought it would be easy, as it was laproscopic. but this second surgery kicked my ass, and 10 days later I’m finally starting to feel better and hope I don’t need another chemo.

The hysterectomy somehow magnified the challenges from the heart surgery. So my progress is not as fast as I’d like, but I’m getting a lot of reassurance from medical people.

This was supposed to be a post about new beginnings but in laying the groundwork, with the cardiac stuff, even though I made every effort to show an economy of words, it’s turned into a huge long post of its own.

I joined a heart valve replacement website group, and it seems most people are much more well versed in the intricacies of side effects, and knock on effects and the procedures and types of procedures, and outcomes than I am. But there are some things I was glad to know were normal, like the depression that follows heart surgery. But it’s made me evaluate relationships and scrape out the useless ones. It’s helped me stop impossible situations. So I left Oman for good. It’s helped me appreciate my life more; something I used to feel, and slowly the extremely tough and difficult situations in Salalah and then Muscat drowned me. It’s given me a clearer idea of who I am and I remember more of it now. How much time I spent (and i think most of us do this) pushing limits, accepting hideous things, constantly rising above whatever was happening, instead of just reassessing and coming up with a plan to continue without the hideousness. Not sure if that makes sense. But it’s a lot I learned or reconfirmed.

And just a NB: after I finished that 1986 radiation, I fucked off to Mexico, hitchhiking down Baja to La Paz. 5 days. And then south to Central America on the mainland. Way better than moping around dying or whatever.

The Story of Enfleurage 6

Stop and Start

I had been playing around with an unrealistic idea of distilling orange blossoms but this was not my path at all. Among other things, I badly underestimated the real estate costs in orange growing California. And the breast cancer diagnosis created complete havoc. I’m sure I’m not the only person to experience disappointments in some personal relationships not withstanding the test of illness. I did live through it though. But the chemo and multiple surgeries were hard and created scars on my spirit as well as my body. After my chemo I went back to Oman, this time to Muscat, and lucked into a beautiful space in the diplomatic quarter, full of large trees, small parks, a functioning beach, and a good grocery store. This time it was all much easier and I had support and the distillery now has 10 copper alembics on a recycling and mainly gravity fed system. I have a big and real office, for the first time, and a tiny boutique and it’s perfect.

Someday I guess I will write more about this journey but I’m itching to go off onto a different subject now, and that is natural aromatics.

For explanation’s sake, I started writing this in the Covid summer, after New York’s trial by fire, which Tom and I watched in horror from Muscat each night, as Governor Cuomo gave his nightly synopsis and the sirens wailed, the mobile morgues filled, and everything else stopped. Oman sank into Covid horror over the summer too, not in so dramatic a fashion, but driven by people indoors for the summer. We had several lockdowns and curfews and still mandated mask wearing and every single place has a temperature check. Our numbers are now down. We still have it but I think we are going in the right direction—things have opened now, the ICU bed count is manageable, and it was just announced we will start receiving vaccines in a few weeks. Our weather has cooled now, and it’s a pleasure to be outside, and this has also helped our numbers.

Post script on this entry—It’s now January 2022, and me and Tom are both triple vaxxed. The distillery was well taken care of throughout the pandemic, and the past 18 months have been hard in terms of isolation, and uncertainty, but we are luckier than most. I was not able to get a vaccine here in Oman, even with a doctors note, although others were able to. Finally, completely fed up, I went back to NYC to get my pfizer shots and I stayed several months. Tom is visiting me here, and we finished our 2021 essential oil production last week.

The Story of Enfleurage 5

A Brief Bit About Salalah

In 2012 I moved to my first actual real distillery, in South Saada, near the ice factory, and set up 5 alembics. I started making frankincense essential oil I could ship back to America and we could actually offer as a regular product, instead of just when I could come to Salalah and make a couple of kilos. I thought it was perfect; the house neatly divided into halves—I lived in one and the other other was the distillery, the office and the giant majlis. It could fit two dozen people and sometimes I did have a big group. It was a rather odd situation—I was, as far as I can tell, the only distillery there with any kind of a presence, the only distillery that was findable. There was one other, from a large American company, but they were as secretive as they could be. Mine was not identifiable from outside, but I was online. There might have been other frankincense distilleries too, but I didn’t know about them.

It was actually a brutal place to live, and I did survive it, until 2016, when I left, fed up and finished with it all. Salalah is not easy, and if you are a foreigner, meaning from outside of Dhofar, and a westerner, and a woman, and without the buffering presence of a company or institution, then get ready, because your determination will be tested. People like to say New York is tough, and “if you can make it there you can make it anywhere.” Not at all. Not even in the same category as Salalah. Anyway, I survived, but when I arrived back to the US, I tested positive for breast cancer.

The Story of Enfleurage 4

Gelato

I really enjoyed making ice cream and finally did the short course at Penn State and, later, the complete Gelato training at Carpigiani, Bologna, Italy. Seems it had been gelato the entire time.

To me, it always seemed like ice cream, or gelato, sorbetto, was a heavenly match for smelling essential oils. It’s not just the closeness of smell and taste, even though they are first cousins. it’s the particular kind of taste you get with gelato…gold, cream, sweet, and voila! The aroma blooms after a few minutes, riding a wave of sweet dairy.

I have to admit I feel a bit vindicated, if miffed, right now, as I’ve just seen Robertet do an instagram post on sampling oils through ice cream, and a pictrure of a gelato machine. They had this set up at SIMPPAR last year, but no doubt in my mind, the idea came from me. God knows I was vocal and wrote and talked endlessly about it. But I didn’t manage to buy the equipment—I’m too small a company. But I do have respect for Robertet—at least it wasn’t Procter and Gamble or Estee Lauder. So I will focus and the fact, undeniable still, that the idea was brilliant and it was mine.

To this day I get requests for frankincense ice cream (even though it’s actually gelato) and occasionally I do make it. But for anyone who has tried it, I never gave my recipe to anyone, so what you tried was not mine! I have seen quite a few companies make something they call “frankincense” but it never seems to work out for them. I think they don’t trust the frankincense, or they don’t truly love it. Frankincense knows the heart. Oh yes, Frankincense knows.

In 2012 I moved to my first actual distillery, in South Saada, and set up 5 alembics, and started making frankincense essential oil I could ship back to America and we could actually offer permamently, instead of just when I could come to Salalah and make a couple of kilos. I stayed in that distillery and moved to another, nearby, and more hidden, until 2016, when I left Salalah, and, I thought, possibly Oman.

I really loved making Gelato, and found gelato to be the match to my heart and interest. I loved the fact that it actually has to be all natural ingredients to be real gelato, and you make it all 100% from scratch—no huge deliveries of milk piped in-—I love the emphasis where I think it should be: on the taste, the experience, the feelings. I like that the typical gelato portion is small enough so you can enjoy a treat daily, and not a huge gluttonous sugar bomb that goes to an extreme, making it a guilty treat. I like the slightly higher temperature of gelato, the better to let those flavors explode, I like the creativity, meaning one can change flavors as one likes, experimenting and creating new flavors according to the whim or whats in the market that day. I like that the batches are small, and it has to be eaten, and if it’s not gone in a day or a few, it goes into gelato cakes. I like that it doesn’t store and it’s not expected to.

So many reasons to love gelato—I wish I could split into an amoeba—there are so many things I want to do. 4 splits would be perfect, Mashallah. I still haven’t put this dream away.

The Story of Enfleurage 3

Drinking the Koolaid

In 2007 I returned…This was after Gonu. I had been on a road trip through North and West Africa, sleeping rough in Mali and the Mauritanian Sahara. When I arrived to India, and my agarwood friends, the first evening out at the butter and cheese paradise family thali restaurant caused my body to seize after all the weeks of austere micro-meals as we ate stale bread and cans of tuna in the dunes. I ended up losing my gall bladder in Mumbai before staggering off to Bangkok for the agarwoood conference. The agarwood lovers were under siege from corporations wanting to capture and commericialize our beloved wood/resin, and once the conference ended, I wanted to be back in Oman. I thought it would heal me and back I came, this time renting a Yaris and driving to Salalah, back to Haffa House, the frankincense market, the wadis, and wild trees, the wind and the space, with a tendril of frankincense smoke every so often. I made up my mind that I would come back, and do some work with frankincense, and I threw a pebble from my gall bladder, a gift from the surgeon, into the landscape along the airport road, hoping it would guide me back.

Over the next few years we lost agarwood, as the original oudh lovers know, and it became a farmed and tortured tree, grown and forced into slavery to make the resin, to meet the need that was suddenly global. Every perfume company now had an oudh, and self-styled experts appeared like mushrooms. The beautiful wild natural wood became harder and more difficult to find, eventually receding into collections in Japan, Korea and China. I stepped into frankincense quite naturally.

In 2008 I brought 4 small copper stills, and did some experiments in a little flat in the Salalah Gardens. Over the next few years I visited Salalah quite often, and kept my stills there, making small amounts of oil that I would take back to Enfleurage in New York, or just label and keep, along with my notes, in a Tupperware box. A friend found me a half of a tiny house in Dahariz, at the edge of the Khor; sometimes flamingos came to visit, and camels and herds of goats would appear from the edges of my vision, walking serenely, sometimes with a human, but often alone. A mosque across the road pointed its speaker into my front windows, and life took on its own rhythm.

In 2011 I discovered the FTA (free trade agreement), allowing Americans to open an Omani company without a sponsor, and I threw myself into that. There were other things afoot too—my goal was never to create a big company, or corporatize frankincense. I wanted to learn it and love it. I wanted my soul to be bathed in it. I would drive to see my favorite groves of trees, past Mughsayl, and have lunch with them. I called them the Old Lady trees, because they were stout and old and strong. I would sit on the rocks and eat my lunch, in the quiet and gentle flitting of the leaves in the breeze, and silence that deafened me.

Meanwhile, my friend and I experimented with ice cream, using her grandmothers easy recipe from condensed milk. We added some frankincense oil.  And it was good. I bought some small equipment, a machine larger than for home use, but not big enough for a gelateria, and started making frankincense ice cream in my home, using a recipe I arrived at myself. I was invited by a friend to offer it for sale at the Salalah Khareef Festival in 2011—not at the fairgrounds, but at the souq.  It was one of the best, most fun, and most interesting experiences of my life—so enjoyable, and hilarious. It caused chaos. It was not supportable, as I could only make 110 servings a day, and it took several hours of my time, not including being at the market and serving it. But it was so much fun that I was disappointed to be sold out so quickly. After one month I had to stop, as the chaos went to the tipping point. I experimented a lot with other local ice cream flavors, inspired by Dhofar: Chai Hakim, from tea served at a certain restaurant in Ittin,  Wadi Darbat, influenced by the botanicals in bloom there, Salalah coffee (with nescafe and tea); lavender, influenced by the Dhofari lavender, Lavandula dhofarensis, growing at Ain Garziz.) I also made hard candy; it was easy to make, with ingredients readily available in Salalah in those years.

The Story of Enfleurage 2

What Became Important in Choosing Essential Oils

From 1995 to now, Enfleurage has grown, matured and become well known for very high quality essential oils and absolutes. We have a dual concept to ensure we surround ourselves with the most lovely, sparkling and fresh aromatics nature can supply. The concepts are

1.     Where: Terroir—There are a few things to consider about where essential oils come from and the first is terroir. It’s the weather, the soil, the geology, the wind, the biodiversity, etc.  Basically it’s the neighborhood. But it’s more than that, it’s the entirety of the situation the plant lives in. The same species can grow in two places and look very different from each other. Frankincense will grow in Muscat, but it’s happier in Dhofar. It doesn’t like to give resin in the north, reserving this honor for the south, and even then, it’s happier in certain areas of Dhofar, and can’t easily be explained by water usage or humidity, or even by temperature. Frankincense trees grow in many different mini-eco-systems, and it’s not easy to explain why here and not there, for example. The differences are not obvious, but over time one begins to see—this is the case for all plants. 

2.      Who: People--The second thing we look for is who is doing the growing, the harvesting, the extraction, etc.  Obviously, we prefer no chemicals, genetic manipulation, exploitation of workers, or corporatization of the natural process, as pertains to each plant. In general, we prefer small and passionate distilleries and of course we are devoted to quality. We therefore work with specialty distilleries around the world, where we can visit occasionally, participate in the harvest or extraction if possible, and talk to the people involved.

Today Enfleurage regularly imports essential oils and absolutes from about 40 countries, and we offer a few natural aromatics for incense: resins and woods. Everything in the store is 100% botanical and intact. My partner Tom and I travel a lot, visiting harvests and distillations, all over the world.

We’ve been open as Enfleurage since 1997, a small specialty boutique in one of Manhattan’s, most interesting and delightful neighborhoods, Greenwich Village.  (The two previous years we were Trygve Aromatics.) Our clients are locals, perfumers, therapists, aroma enthusiasts, and anyone who is interested in exploring the world of essential oils and wants an authentic experience that they can take in any direction they like. We are a well known source for information regarding our oils, and many of us have worked at Enfleurage since its beginning, meaning over 20 years.  And we are not multi-level marketing, so no agenda and no high pressure sales.

As I mentioned, my specialty was agarwood, and we had Laotian and some small amounts of Assamese (Indian) wood and oil in the store. I did a course on essential oils at Purdue University in Indiana and my final paper was on Aquilaria ssp. We were quite well known for it.

What Happened with Agarwood?  

When agarwood’s status was changed from a sublime entity into a mass-traded commodity, and the trade was banned except by certain large companies, we had to leave it. I felt like an aroma widow.  This process was complete by 2011—it seemed like a coup d’arôme.  The people who loved Oudh were pushed out, unless they had really big money. A small group of interested parties managed to get it on CITES, the listing of which meant simply only those with the certificate could trade or travel with the Aquilaria. They used the “endangered species” moniker to seize control of the trade. At the same time, a huge publicity surge widened the market exponentially. Now everyone has heard of oudh. Ironically, though, the farmed wood available now (2020) is a ghost of what we had. Where once wild trees had grown in the forest and made an infection based on a fungus that attacked where and when and if it chose, these were replaced with agarwood plantations: straight lines  of trees, riddled with infection tubes, like a horror movie, to produce more of this botanical, to feed their growing market, and only for those large companies or mafia organizations who could obtain the certificate. I will say, still, that this was a scam, perpetrated by a cynical group who took advantage of the language of endangered species, to further their own interests.  The world lost a lot when we lost agarwood; those tortured farmed trees just make you look away, reduced to commodities, like animals on a factory farm. It’s the Matrix. The glorious mystery and sublime wood is now out of our lives, unless we are private collectors with massive amounts of money. Almost all the agarwood one sees today is this farmed dreck, which can smell pretty, but is not the same at all.

Magical Muscat and the Space of Salalah

In 2006 I traveled to Oman for the first time—it had been a dream for years, but Oman was difficult to visit before that, in the way that I traveled. But I came to see our frankincense distiller. He was based in Muscat, and drove me around a little in the evening. I remember how quiet the Shatti roundabout was, with the smell of the sprinklers, earth and flowers everywhere.  I could hear crickets, in the middle of the capital city! Muscat was elegant, serene, enchanting, beautiful white Omani architecture, trees covered in fragrant blossoms, flowers everywhere, pictures of HM Qaboos, whom I had already admired, all juxtaposed between the bare ochre mountains and the sea. I was swooning.

A few days later I went south, arriving in Salalah by bus, alone, at 3 am. I walked over to the Salalah hotel, fortunately located very near the GTC bus station. In the morning I woke up to empty space. I was completely at sea. There were no points of reference; nothing was obvious. Everything was space. Just open space. I saw dust blowing. Camels. Some cars. Mountains in the distance.  A coffee shop with men sitting. This was the center of Salalah.

I soon moved to the Haffa House Hotel, at the airport roundabout, and found someone to show me around. Mohammed drove me all over for a week. To the Wadi Dowka trees, to Job’s Tomb, to Wadi Darbat and to the baobab forest. Up and down Haffa corniche, to the Mirbat fish restaurant. Out to the port, for tea and paranthas with old men in Zeek, to Ayn Razat, and Jebel Samhan, to Khor Rori, Hasik, and back to the frankincense souq.  The theme of Salalah was space, austerity, the sounds of nature we don’t hear any more.  The frankincense was beyond enchanting.  The smoke curling through the Haffah souq, the entire stores devoted to selling bags of frankincense, men sorting pieces in public areas, tea at Leyali Hadramawt, endless resin fondling, smelling, talking, dreaming.

I spent my time in Salalah swooning

The American expression is “I drank the Kool-aid”  

The Story of Enfleurage

The Beginning

A brief background:

In 1989 I went to Yemen for the first time, with a friend; British passport. We were waiting for Sudanese visas in Cairo and British passports were a problem for Middle Eastern visas that year.

Our plan was to sail down the Nile, preferably on a raft. While we were waiting, we decided to spend a couple of weeks in Yemen. It seemed interesting and like a good way to spend 2 weeks.  It was north and south then.

While I definitely fell for the beans cooked in stone bowls, and the beautiful old city of Sana’a, and the long nights of qat chewing, accompanied by cold Canada Dry and a couple of thousand cigarettes, what I just swooned over was the Bakhour Hagmah in Sana’a. If you’re not familiar, it’s a mix of aromatics and spices, and you put a pinch in a little stone dish and then place that on coals. Once it starts to smoke, you grab the bowl sitting next to you, and turn it upside down over the smoke, capturing it. Once your bowl is full of smoke, you can flip it over and take the water vessel that you also have next to you, and pour the water through the smoke into the bowl, scenting it. Then you pour the water back into its vessel and you have something magnificent.

I mean really. It was all I needed. In Yemen they scent their drinking water with incense.

Of course they did.

The spark took.

In Tai’iz I wandered into a perfume shop and the indulgent store owner was kind enough to show me hair perfumes, and Yemeni Bakhours, cream perfumes, and oudh. I bought as much as I could and he gave me an empty aluminum bottle (with the label scrubbed off) of “dehn-al Oudh.”

I had no idea what it was, but I couldn’t take my nose out of it. (Just for the record, it was from a company called Mohammed Dowd and they were based at the export zone in Madras ((Chennai today))—I managed to get there as well, in 1997. But if you’re an oudh enthusiast, don’t do it.)

 I carried that bottle around with me for 5 years, until 1994, when I was inspired to start a small company so I could surround myself with scents like this. The inspiration came at the Plain of Jars, an Iron age burial site in central Laos, which was then full of uxo from the secret American war in the 1960s. The Plain of Jars exactly describes the site, and on 6 July 2019, the Plain of Jars was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can read its Wiki here.

 This was before the internet, I had been traveling throughout Indochina, as the countries were all just opening, and I was beginning to notice Agarwood, although I hadn’t noticed it came from Laos and Cambodia! Back I went to Yemen, alone this time, and just as the war was winding down. Traveling around was limited, due to the demobilization, but the people in Sana’a seemed pleased I was there as I guess it was evidence some normalcy was coming back. A tourist! I did make it to Tai’iz and, oudh bottle in hand, found Mr Ghailan once again. He was astonished, of course, but very kind and indulgent and showed me how to make a few things, and how to understand a few other things, and what flowers grew where, and when they bloomed, and about things like loofah seeds, ambergris and agarwood. I visited him in later years every time I went to Yemen, of course, but have now lost touch due to the fighting.

So you can say that Yemen was the seed and the spark and agarwood was the water.

I opened my store in New York City in 1995; it’s a story for another time, but suffice to say that over the years we became less about Yemeni Aromatics and more about essential oils, with a special focus on agarwood.   

Essential Oils and Chemotherapy

A Personal Opinion

Many people come to ask what oils to get their friend who is starting chemo. There’s a lot of opinions about this, everywhere and I guess I’ll throw in mine as well.

First, let’s just say that there are no studies about this—it’s not possible, as chemo is such a subjective experience. There are two aspects: 1. How the chemo works against the cancer, and 2, how you can cope.

I am pretty familiar with chemotherapy. I’ve had it. Lots of people I love had had it.

It’s totally understandable that you want to help someone you love. But maybe essential oils are not the way. Here’s my reasoning: It can throw your sense of small out of whack, seriously. And your sense of taste too. I had no desire for my essential oils during chemo. I craved the colognes my father used to wear, even if they smelled odd. It was about comfort and memory. Sometimes my own essential oils smelled weird and disgusting. This was real but temporary. Also, chemo can be pretty hellish. Even if it’s not the worst thing you’ve ever experienced, it’s probably not something you want to be reminded of every time you smell the oils you used during it. I was so thrilled, long after the chemo left my body, and once my body had repaired much of itself, to thrillingly and slowly recover my real sense of smell. And the delight I felt to smell rosemary again, and lavender; to smell our Dominican orange, vetiver, cedar and frankincense of course. I felt very lucky to not have a chemo association with them. It was a long awaited reunion, the kind I didn’t even realize I had been waiting for.

This might seem unimportant to some; I hear a lot about essential oils and their detoxifying effect. Assuming they do help “detoxify,”: Is chemotherapy the right time to try to speed up your liver, which is already stressed to the maximum? The chemo has dosed precisely and it’s the maximum possible. The last thing you want to do is try to artificially manipulate the metabolism. My dear friend had a partner who didn’t believe in chemo—he demanded to know why she couldn’t do micro-doses. Chemo doesn’t work like that. It breaks everything down, so it will also break down the cancer cells. It’s not subtle. A micro-dose seems quite pointless. I will never forget him demanding the oncologists at UCLA answer his superficial demands.

If you or someone you love is faced with chemotherapy, it often works and can buy time when other options don’t exist. And some people honestly don’t have a bad time, even from ACT. To undergo it is a personal decision the patient has to make for themselves. They (or you) need all the love and support possible. Maybe essential oils are something they crave, in which case, great, use them. Or maybe you just want to diffuse a little lemon in the room. Again, fine. But just remember that there are many things to consider if you want to support your loved one, and essential oils might be better to greet them on the other side. Suggestions? Sit with them, maybe play a game. Bring food, mild, bland, even; comfort food, stodgy is best. Or something sweet. Nothing smelly. Keep them company. Do the dishes, watch something funny on TV. Be kind and patient. It was hard for me to keep my shit together during Adriomycin/Cytoxin/Taxol but I did finish, eventually. And it took a long time to come back, but improvements started after the first cycle off it.

Many people would forward me “articles” on the latest holistic cancer cures. I wouldn’t recommend sending those. I felt bombarded. It just makes an obligation for the person who can’t concentrate and who is using all their energy to get through chemo, go through a ton of research, contact people they don’t know, and eventually possibly have to defend their choice for not following up and feeling worse because they can’t. My friend Andra even had to deal with some people telling her chemo doesn’t work and is a conspiracy. If you care about someone there is no reason to do that. If you’re doing chemo, you are feeling exhausted and vulnerable. You probably just want to lay down and watch TV.

In summery, if the patient wants essential oils, fine. But don’t push them on her. If you’re the patient, and you are trying to want your essential oils, but not feeling it, don’t worry, they will be waiting for you on the other side. Good luck.