The Second Burn Ritual: Candle Refill, Memory, and Meaning

There’s something different about lighting a candle for the second time. It’s not about the flame anymore. It’s about what stays—what lingers after the first burn, what the wax held onto while you waited. For me, that second burn took me back.

Not to a studio. Not to a shelf. But to my father’s music room.

Crates of vinyl. A piano waiting for my hands. The quiet sound of a record starting, and the soft scent of vanilla curling into the corners of the room. It wasn’t just music. It was memory. And I didn’t know it then, but it was being pressed into me.

Wax once held sound. Now I use it to hold memory. This brand didn’t begin at the pouring table. It began in that room. And the second burn?

That’s where I return to it. It’s not just a refill. It’s a remembering.

The wax remembers every note.