Antiques & broken things

A former coworker and friend passed away a few days ago. So, I went to an antique store.

As is often the case with me when sadness or anxiety floods and fogs my brain, I turn to pretty things. Sometimes I venture outside to look at the sky and trees and flowers, hoping for a bunny or deer. Other times, I turn to pretty, shiny things that have a story to tell as I try to lose myself in the curious corners of dusty shops.

As I did this past weekend.

I bought a lovely journal with matching pens as a birthday gift to myself last week. But instead of writing, I strolled.

I have a Pyrex problem. I also apparently have a glass problem. All colors and shapes. The older, the better. If there’s an original lid, I am a mess. Puddle. Why, I have no idea. I love glass.

This adventure into the wonderland of antiques drew me to a certain glass bottle, complete with a rusty topper. A quick Google search and I discovered an entire world where a short-lived brewery rose and fell and shared a name with its founder, F.X. Blumle. The town was, and still is, called Emporium, Pennsylvania, which is located about 3 hours northeast of where I grew up. I never heard of it before this past weekend.

As I held the perfect bottle in my hands, I pictured the place where it saw life, a small town in the middle of nowhere. What was life like there in 1878, when the brewery began? Any thought of old things takes my mind to Europe, where antique stores take on an entirely different meaning. 1878? Ha. That’s child’s play. It’s not uncommon to find things in the antique shops on side cobblestone streets dating from the 1500s and older.

Ahh, Europe. Lots of pretty things.

Which, right there in the shop, thinking about Europe, made me tear up. I’m holding the bottle in my right hand and wiping tears away with my left.

My friend.

She was from France. Like, REALLY from France. And if anyone knew about pretty things … well, yeah. She did.

Antiques and tears and broken things like hearts, all in an antique shop in a small Indiana town in the middle of nowhere.