a flower and a knife
Mar. 22nd, 2021 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeHave a jasmine flower. You can stand beside it and feel sultry in a tiny way.
A knife (no photo)
There is a knife in my knife drawer that has a vendetta against me. We were mortal enemies in a previous life, I guess: I must have been a fool who blunted it, using it to cut willow switches or to carve my initials in a beech tree, or maybe I was a careless crafter who ruined it with glue, or maybe I foiled the schemes of the person whose grip around its handle it loved best in all the world---in any case, it vowed to draw my blood in all subsequent lives and worlds in which we encounter each other, and the result is that I *cannot* pick up that knife without injuring myself.
But I feel superstitious about just discarding a knife. Really I'd like to send it to Hamono Jinja, the sub-shrine in Yasaka Shrine that commemorates faithful knives. Mine is not faithful to me, but it's definitely faithful to something, and maybe honoring it in that way would make us even. In the meantime it crouches in my drawer, sneering when I take out some other knife instead of it.
A knife (no photo)
There is a knife in my knife drawer that has a vendetta against me. We were mortal enemies in a previous life, I guess: I must have been a fool who blunted it, using it to cut willow switches or to carve my initials in a beech tree, or maybe I was a careless crafter who ruined it with glue, or maybe I foiled the schemes of the person whose grip around its handle it loved best in all the world---in any case, it vowed to draw my blood in all subsequent lives and worlds in which we encounter each other, and the result is that I *cannot* pick up that knife without injuring myself.
But I feel superstitious about just discarding a knife. Really I'd like to send it to Hamono Jinja, the sub-shrine in Yasaka Shrine that commemorates faithful knives. Mine is not faithful to me, but it's definitely faithful to something, and maybe honoring it in that way would make us even. In the meantime it crouches in my drawer, sneering when I take out some other knife instead of it.
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Date: 2021-03-22 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2021-03-22 01:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2021-03-22 03:07 pm (UTC)The knife must be cursed.
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Date: 2021-03-22 05:23 pm (UTC)the asterisk is a note to myself to save the beautiful jasmine.
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Date: 2021-03-22 07:51 pm (UTC)The knife! Hilarious, but not. Poor you. I am interested in knowing if you succeed in "uncursing" it. :P
Knife lore from France: When someone offers you a knife, you have to give them a coin in return so as not to "cut" the friendship. :)
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Date: 2021-03-23 12:16 am (UTC)I hope that you and the knife can reach a detente!
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Date: 2021-03-23 01:42 am (UTC)It's lovely. Does it live with you?
Mine is not faithful to me, but it's definitely faithful to something, and maybe honoring it in that way would make us even.
Previous owner?
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Date: 2021-03-23 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2021-03-27 01:55 pm (UTC)As it happens, though, my local El stop is right in the midst of the Asian district (of the Vietnamese and Thai flavor rather than Chinatown, which is on the south side). And one day I was coming home from an errand and walked past a shop that had blooming jasmine plants sitting outside for sale. Realizing I'd never encountered the actual plant, I bent over and had a whiff.
And it was just...delightful. Sweet, yes, but at a fraction of the proportion that it's usually distilled to in perfumes, with a delicacy and warmth that did feel...yes, sultry. Suddenly I understood what it was all these teas and perfumes were attempting to emulate. I wonder if the problem isn't that they're trying too hard...
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