Project 365 Day 90

Antique Me

I have a friend who has access to lots of estate sale things. I love estate sales (because I don’t have to work them). You see some incredible things that you may never see again, because they don’t sell them at Target or Sears or Ikea. You look at them and wonder what stories they have to tell; what kind of things have they seen and what history have they lived through. In one of the places I lived in England we were within walking distance of a place my parents called a junk store (they refer to it as an antique store if it’s mentioned now...but they were young then and the stuff was more like old junk). We would walk in and there were almost goat trails through all of the stuff. And walking up the stairs to the second level I can remember things even on the stairs to look at. And the smell, not so good, but deep, like it could help conceal secrets that were trying to remain a mystery. I can’t afford going to antique stores, or estate sales for that matter. I see too much I fall in love with. Garage sales on the other hand are more my speed. What is it they say? One person’s junk is another person’s treasure? Well, at garage sales I can very often find a treasure that was junk to someone else. Actually, it usually ends up being junk to my husband, too, but we won’t go there. I picked up a gorgeous frame at a garage sale once. Carried it around with me for half an hour while I looked at other things trying to decide if I really needed it. Well, of course I did. It’s one of those old tilting frames. You know, it holds about a 5x7 photo (about a 5x7 because they had photo sizes that were all over the place back then...whenever back then was) and you can tilt that part of the frame back a little but it sits on a solid base. Anyway, I bring this frame home (I got it for $5)and it’s got this gorgeous portrait of a woman who is probably in her mid-20’s to early 30’s in it and I can’t bear to remove the photo. No kidding. So I named her Aunt Vi (short for Violet). No family history, just Aunt Vi. So, I think I should have a really amazing portrait done of myself, and I’m going to put it in a really cool frame. And on the back of the photo, I’m going to write my own history. Well, a made-up history, because mine is kind of boring, but I will tell them that my name (Candy) is not a nick-name, it’s my given name, and I wouldn’t have had the sweet tooth I do if my parents had named me something cool and sweetly romantic...like Violet.