When my family moved back to New York City after a decade away, we made the questionable choice to live in our new home while actively renovating. (Spoiler: It was foolish and terrible, just shy of Money Pit proportions.) Lessons were learned — for instance, unzipping a plastic tarp to get into bed is fun for exactly one night, and my children prefer living in homes with walls.I also discovered that sometimes a transportive scent can inspire a complete 180, from stricken to optimistic, in a single breath.I found such a scent through my husband, who had picked up a reed oil diffuser from home-fragrance company Antica Farmacista to give to my cousin as a gift. But one morning he opened the box to cheer me up when I was feeling particularly burned out. (Sorry, Jeanette.)The fragrance, named Elderflower, promises notes of “pear, quince, and osage orange” (a woody-scented fruit from the mulberry family). As a staunch lover of earthy, smoky scents, I thought these notes read like someone’s grocery list. Luckily, I had uncorked the bottle to smell the oil before I read those descriptors, or I might have assumed that it would be far too fruity and flowery for me.Instead, I was teleported out of my Brooklyn mayhem to a breezy botanical spirit realm, floating above the plebian weightiness of my transitioning life. I’m so glad I didn’t let my mind get in the way of my nose.I set up the bottle of golden liquid in my (still tarped) bedroom, where its scent proceeded to gently waft floral support through the room for a year. With all the chaos and construction dust surrounding me, the Antica Farmacista Elderflower Reed Diffuser was effortless — requiring nothing from me at a time when everything seemed taxing.