Among the possessions I have from my mother is a lovely wall mirror with carved wooden frame. It seemed always to have been part of our home, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that I thought to ask about its origins. My mother had bought it at an antique sale when we'd lived in northern New York state in the early 1950s. "I bought it for the frame," she explained. "It had some non-descript painting that I threw out, and then I had a mirror cut to fit it."
Non-descript painting? Oh, how I wished I'd seen it! "Oh, it was just a dreary countryside," she said. Recently I've read that even our obscure part of New York state attracted a share of aristocrats fleeing the French Revolution -- until they learned just how cold the winters could be and high-tailed it elsewhere! Might one of them have brought along and then left behind............?
Oh, seriously. Let's forget the possibilities of lost Rembrandts and Old-Masters-Found-in-a-Barn and just enjoy the frame, as my mother did:
After all, it isn't the first time a frame has been worth more than its contents. The very same thing has happened to me.
Just a year ago, I wrote about the fun I had creating an iridescent bubble-themed card for a work-buddy who was then following me into retirement. My card honoured the special place she has in my workplace memories for the time she cheerfully set things aright when I'd created a veritable flood of bubbles by using the wrong detergent in the dishwasher.
Some time in the year we shared an office, she'd mentioned that her Significant Other was a bit of a packrat (placing him high in my estimation) and, among other things, had a basement full of picture frames of every possible description. So it was not entirely incomprehensible to open her recent email attachment and find my modest 4"x12" card now flawlessly installed in its own glossy wooden frame:
Pretty cool, eh? -- even if friend and her S.O. can't quite agree where to hang it. (I'm with her -- definitely belongs right over her dishwasher!)
Next to my mother's mirror, my own best frame is the one I covered with elegant wasp paper, in all its grey-gold-silver marbled glory. From time to time, I consider what I might paint that could possibly be good enough to be placed in this beautiful frame.
It has now been a solid three weeks and then some of waiting for the repairman. Here and on "vacation." I am beside myself. He was to have been here, at the latest, 45 minutes ago, and his time frame has come and gone. I am in an absolute state about everything and anything, so don't light a match anywhere near me please. For weeks now, it's been the daily stomach ache, the daily headache, the daily rant, and let's not forget: the daily crying jag. I put my head down on the table and thought to myself, "What next?" And then [light bulb]! Let me check into To Capture the Eye. That will calm me down. And so, boys and girls, it did. I read it three times now and thank you KellyMo, I think I will survive. Civility, humor and intelligence -- oh my!
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