The other day while showing my visiting friend around Antwerp, one of my favorite cities in the world , I had to pause when I saw a certain boutique. I recognized the design on the products before it sunk in as to which store it actually was, namely because of the cognitive disjunct going on in my head. Something just wasn’t right.
It was a small outlet for the Officina Profuma Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella di Firenze.
“Hmmm...that’s odd,” I thought and said aloud, “this ain’t right.” “Why not?” she asked.
“Because we’re in Antwerp, not Florence.”
I like paradoxes, and I secretly like to think that I am one, giant living paradox, and perhaps my favorite one is Zeno’s Paradox of the Arrow of Time. If an arrow is always half-way the distance of its target, it can never arrive, as it is eternally in transit, yet at the same time, always being half the distance of some distance, it is eternally at rest, never moving, setting up the paradox of either all is in motion, or nothing changes, or...MU. ‘Tis such with me. I like taking a different route to familiar destination s, thwarting habitual patterns, yet at the same time, I love certain things to be exactly the same, or perhaps neither and both at once, MU...this was such a conundrum for me to see this store.
I love shaving with a brush and cream. Since I can’t always enjoy the fine, though dying, art of the straight-razor shave, like the ones I had in India and elsewhere, the next best thing is a premium brush and cream application. And, the best shaving cream that I have found to date is from the original, and previously only, Officina di Santa Maria Novella Farmaceutica in Florence.
I first heard of Santa Maria from one of the other professors, who theoretically was on staff with us in Castiglione Fiorentino, though in truth was just there to sight-see himself and leave the rest of the work to the other faculty. Yet, he was the one who indirectly introduced me to Santa Maria, so I can’t fully begrudge his blatantly selfish desires. The one thing that he wanted to make sure to do in Florence was to buy soaps, perfumes, etc. at Santa Maria, so he went on and on about Santa Maria. What’s the big deal? I unknowingly wondered. Until I went, that is.
Since 1612 the famous potions of the Santa Maria Novella have been dispensed exclusively, or so I thought, from their Florence abode. Currently housed in a beautiful old locale, just southwest of the church on the Via della Scala, one walks in and is immediately taken by the smells, the aromas, the essence of the place. It is an olfactory ex-stasis. I would not be surprised if Süskind did not find but even a little inspiration for his best-selling novel about the artisan mastery of making perfume from this store.
Although there are many, many wonderful things in the boutique, for me, my coveted purchase is always a bottle of Emulsione Analcolica contro fuoco del rasoio (aftershave) and a cake of Crema di barba. The textures and aromas of both are indeed divinely inspired and a single cake of the cream will last me several years of regular shaves. So, I can space my trips to Florence accordingly, until now, that is. For now, if it runs out, I can go down the street in Antwerp to get my Santa Maria Novella aftershave and/or shaving cream.
Well, though one might think I should be over-joyed, I was over-noyed instead. How could they? I felt the bitter pangs of infidelity, like a lover spurned, grip my heart. The only place I should be able to get my shaving products is in Florence, not Antwerp. I don’t go to Florence to buy Belgian chocolates, do I?
Now, this all sounds like a whining petit-bourgeois, which ultimately it is, but that really isn’t the point. There is truly something special about knowing that something is unique in this world, isn’t there? To be the only one of something is quite remarkable in a world of imitations, and mass production. I cherished knowing, or perhaps living the illusion, that there was just one Santa Maria Novella in my life. Yet, the illusion has been shattered, and even if I go back to Florence, I know that this one here will be sneering in mockery and contempt, chiding me for being oh-too-good to walk inside...or something like that.
But, I do like unique places. I like knowing that there are certain places that I will never see anywhere else. But, you never know. I remember visiting a pretty cool, little grungy coffee shop in Seattle about 25 years ago, thinking, “Whoah, that’s a cool, little, grungy coffee shop. Wonder if they call it Starbucks because of Moby-Dick?”
As a business, places need to expand, to franchise, to thrive. As a consumer, I like the personal touch, the history, the storied tradition. They are in eternal conflict with each other, tradition and survival. One seems to never be moving, frozen in Time, the other always moving, never static. I wonder what mysterious, scented cantor dust wafts in between the interstices of the infinite moments which separate the two...indeed, which perfumed aroma would best suit Infinity?
I wonder, and would it be franchised?
