Vase Gazing

It was like having a well-trained dog whining at the door with a leash in his mouth insisting you take him out for relief. I felt so unsettled. I must do something! Anything... to finish unpacking from my move. So, I grabbed the box sitting nearby. It was full of fine glass vases in different colors.

Collecting beautiful glass vases just so that I can set them in a windowsill sans flowers has been a hobby of mine for many years. My mother collected them passed some on to me to start my own collection. I like to gaze at the colors when light shines through them. I find vase gazing soothing to my soul.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this collection created a significant bond between my ex-roommate and I. When I first moved into Helen’s home, I asked if I could line up my vases in her huge living room window. She didn’t mind, but was surprised that I had such a collection. She had never heard of such a thing, and thought it a little odd that I only liked to look at the bright colors and not put flowers in my vases.

As time passed, I added more to the collection until the sill was crammed tightly with them. Shortly before I was to move to my new apartment, we had a yard sale and I culled many from my collection to sell. 

I sat up the night before, pricing them, as I packed away the keepers, leaving the window bereft. It made quite an impact on both of us the next morning as we noticed how drab that corner of the room had become without the emanating rainbow of color. During the yard sale Helen gathered up my culled vases and insisted on buying them from me, then put them up in her window. "Where they belong." She said.