An Old Church Cornice

No babies were harmed in the making of this blog post.

My friend, who will remain nameless to protect her identity, and I had an adventure. On a recent excursion to Community Forklift, we spotted treasure: Antiquities!

Or something like it. It was definitely a cool piece of architectural…. something. Something that I knew I had to have. It turns out it was a cornice from an old church. A very dirty old piece of plaster, with foils and a cross in the middle.

Possibly, I was just delusional after loading 500 pounds of gravel into my friend’s car in 95 degree heat. But there was no price and I had to leave it behind. They let me put it on hold and wait it out until I was quoted a price.

They called me as I was almost home, to give me the price. I pulled over, sleeping baby in the car, and called my friend. I agonized for about 30 seconds about whether to go back and get it as it was slightly over the price I had decided was the limit. I had just helped her load 500 pounds of gravel, so she owed me a favor, and we both headed back to Community Forklift.

 Her simple statement, “it’s really beautiful” rang pure and true in my head.

When we got back to Community Forklift, I thought it would be easy. Baby was asleep. I ran in and paid for the antiquities in question. The air conditioning was still running in the car. Only I soon discovered it was too fragile and too big to fit in my enormous station wagon… together with the baby.

Ahhh the dilemmas we so often face in life. I considered whether or not to leave the baby behind. How do I manage to fit the art and the baby together in the car? The answer was clear: The art came home with me, and the baby went with my friend and the gravel.

The funny thing was, the baby was not the least bit alarmed by it all. Well, maybe just briefly, when she was sitting in her car seat in the parking lot; she did look a tiny bit worried. But I reassured her and said, “sometimes we have to go to extreme measures for art.” A valuable lesson indeed.

 And she was fine. Together we acquired a great piece of old art from an old church. And it was a perfect day, gravel and all.

© copyright 2013 Mariam d’Eustachio at Simply Turquoise.