A sales clerk offered the writer more than a good deal on anti-aging cream.
Sometimes there are significant moments in life that you almost miss if you are not paying attention. Take what happened to me, for example. Like so many, I have multiple roles – a 46 year old mother, daughter, wife, and cop who loves to entertain and decorate.
I recently created one beautiful, perfect room in my house, to replace the chaotic mess of a dining room I had lived with for nine years. Wood shades, soft yellow walls, and lush greenery make it soothing and restful. Antique lithographs of ducks and egrets hang in their light wood frames. It is a soft and organic space. I am sitting in the room as I write this, sipping wine and watching the late afternoon autumn sun streak in. It is a haven away from the stress of the job, a place where I don’t think about growing older and wondering how long I can go on wearing body armor and a gun belt without my knees and hips giving way under the strain. Sometimes when I am sitting in my squad car between calls for service, I wonder too how long can I endure other people’s pain and keep my head above my own sea of pain, my bipolar disorder. Then I drag myself home and sit in my dining room and it goes away as I sip wine and listen to my son talking from the kitchen where he is supposed to be doing his homework.
During a recent dinner my multicolored lucite salt shaker fell apart, leaving a big pile of salt on the table. I wasn’t sorry to see it go. The matching pepper grinder had cracked some time ago and the cheery red, green, blue and yellow did not look right on my sage table cloth with its natural woven rope place mats.
I went off to the mall in search of a simple wooden salt and pepper set like the one my mother had on her table when I was growing up. My quest led me to a kitchen store that sold high end knife sets and Le Creuset pots. As I was about to enter the store a short, slender, dark-haired young man approached me from one of those kiosks that have sprung up in the center of the causeways, gypsies hawking a disparate variety of wares.
