A man behind the counter hides behind a leafy newspaper oblivious to our disposable world. Wandering across waxy wood floors the scent of old days and dust permeates our souls. On the back wall stand three cuckoo clocks, dark and lean with only the past to mark, mechanisms broken and hands stuck at once upon a time. Nearby a dropleaf table is glazed with milk glass resting on linen edged with lavender needlepoint stitched by a young woman now old and faded. A corner shelf is covered with pink glass etched with depression and the Rose of Sharon now empty of light that once streamed into a dining room and set it ablaze. These tangible fragments refuse to be erased and for a brief moment we share their struggles and triumphs so we linger with the old man clinging to the past. We yearn to pull up a chair, to share a cup of coffee, to chat about the radio show last night that brought to life what we could not see for ourselves. Yet in these days, the trees shed their leaves and the days shorten; soon winter will arrive and we will don our boots and wander shivering through the snow and the new year ahead. ~Rae
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Lovely. Tear in my eye, smile in my heart remembering many a Saturday morn meandering from antiquity shop to shop with my dad. We had our own term, 'potching'. Though dad used many yiddish expressions I don't think this is yiddish, just made up. We both knew what it meant.
Beautiful! It reminds me of the start of a wonderful book...
From: "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence.
FIRST CONVERSATION
The first time I saw Brother Lawrence was upon the 3rd of August, 1666. He told me that God had done him a singular favour, in his conversion at the age of eighteen.
That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of God, which has never since been dimmed from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since...