Mini - in sequence

Cat yawn!

Amber

The first time I ever had the delightful experience of smelling amber resin was in a health food store when I was sixteen. I had been making solid perfumes and scented bath oils as gifts. The resin was locked inside a cabinet with  all the precious essential oils. The sales lady looked at me with pure annoyance as I asked what was inside the tiny carved wooden box. There was only one. She told me it was natural ambergris and very expensive. I asked to see it and she grudgingly opened the glass case for me and handed it over. I smelled it and had to have it. Didn't really understand what it was but for ten dollars (two hours babysitting) I took it home.

It smelled dark yet sweet, incense-like and beautiful. The piece of shiny golden brownish crystalline resin reminded me of mica and the way it reflects light. It seemed very small for the price but that made it also more precious. I've always collected miniature things and the box it came in was adorable.
I was confused at first because according to my books on cetaceans, ambergris was a whale excretion of some sort and it seemed odd that a health food store would sell an animal product. (This was before I ever used the internet/google.) But eventually I learned it was not actual ambergris which is rare and very costly, but a perfume or solid incense. I finally dared to use a tiny bit on my skin instead of just smelling it and it became one of my favorite smells.

The tiny piece lasted for years because I was so careful with it, but when i'd finally used the last crumb I went searching for more. Annoyingly the health food store never had it again, though I kept checking. A store that sold silver jewellery and imported handmade products had some which I found randomly on a shelf in little clear bags and I was so excited that I wanted to buy it all. But unfortunately it was not the same. The smell was weaker, less sweet and the resin didn't crumble easily. Sadness!

I eventually discovered the internet and tried to find it online. There were all different kinds and since I still had no idea what it was actually composed of, it was hard to choose. Finally I found one called celestial amber resin from India and it seemed very close to the first magical one I had been missing. I used up the five gram chunk and ordered more a year or so later...and of course once again it was different than the last. Still nice though. The previous one smelled amazing from first application but the second one was not as amazing until it mellowed into the skin a bit.

Finally now I know what this magical stuff is made of and its silly that the ingredients remained a mystery to me for so long. The resin is composed of vanilla, benzoin and labdanum! Sometimes flower oils are added. Now I want to try to recreate that original amber which of course is the one I remember and long for always.

Water

When I was in grade three, one of my teachers told the class something that filled me with absolute wonder.
He told us that the water which comes from our taps, and seems so normal to drink or bathe in, is actually the very same water that dinosaurs drank. It was the same water that dinosaurs touched and had been inside of actual living dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago. When it rained, those raindrops were practically triceratops tears. This made my young mind explode with excitement. I was sharing water with dinosaurs!!
I already loved to swim, play in the lake, puddles, sprinklers, pools, bathtubs...but this put my watery love into a new higher level of intensity.
I wanted to go back in time and drink from a lake beside a herd of Maiasaurs so badly.
Sadly not possible, but I began to worship water. Ever since I look at it as something magical.
My dreams are filled with it often.
When I swim and am completely submerged in it, I wish I could live like a mermaid forever.
It is as old as the earth itself, and so beautiful.
Right now I am drinking peppermint tea brewed with water that a zeuglodon once swam in.