Quarantine Still Life 20
My great-Uncle Barba was 10 when the 1918 flu pandemic hit and told stories of seeing bodies piled up on wagons in the streets of Philadelphia. He smoked a pipe and I'd watch him pack and light it, inhaling the leafy smell. This "Warm Tobacco Pipe" candle remarkably replicates that fragrance. I'd only known bay leaves as dried up things that you added to a soup pot until my cousin started bringing me fresh bay leaves from her Texas yard. This lovely Bay plant (Laurus nobilis) was an impulse purchase at a farm stand -- my first trip out to a store in weeks. It is said to have antiseptic and bactericidal properties and the fragrance of the leaves increases as they dry. These days I'm doubly happy when I smell something wonderful as the loss of smell is a symptom of the covid-19 virus.