Have you ever walked into a vintage store, or thrift store, or yard sale, and had something demand that you take it home? I had a lovely afternoon of shopping this past Friday with my two girls, my granddaughter and my oldest daughter’s best friend. There’s this amazing little downtown area not too far from here where all of the shops are locally-owned small businesses, and there is a huge array of things to browse through . . . lots of it handmade! It’s one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon.
Late in the day, it started to rain, so we ducked into a little strip of stores that all open into a shared indoor breezeway and wandered into Anchors and Acorns. The owner, Karen, was friendly and welcoming, and the whole shop is full of beautiful and whimsical vintage items. I happened to glance down as I walked around a table in the center of the room, and instantly fell in love. This sweet old girl looked like she was sitting there just waiting for me.
Yes, she is quite tattered. She’s got plenty of wear and tear and some random age spots. It even looks as if someone has cut pieces from her and ripped her binding off completely. One day in the past, though, she was fresh and new and loved by someone. Maybe I was a little affected by something that the kids and I had read in our history lesson earlier in the week. “Katherine of Aragon is forty-four years old. The freshness has faded from her cheeks.” I’m only a few years shy of that! I like to think that the freshness is far from fading from my cheeks, but the truth is, we all get a little “tattered” with age. That doesn’t change the fact that there’s beauty in all of us, though.
Can you just imagine the stories that she could tell of the hands that created her, of the fabrics used to piece her together, perhaps of little ones that she covered and comforted through sickness or scary dreams, maybe stories of picnics in meadows and days at the beach on the sand?
She’s long past her prime now (another wash or two might be the end of her), but she’ll do a beautiful job of decorating my sewing studio, and I hope that she’ll remind me on a regular basis that beauty is about far more than appearance. There’s an unmatched beauty that emerges with age and experience. You just have to look past what you see with your eyes.
