Little Shop of Helen
I don't know why, or where the thought of you came from....but driving home today, I thought of you.
I remembered the three or four times I visited you, one time in particular when I was with my grandparents for a week the summer after I turned eight.
I don't remember your name, but I do remember that you were an intricate little shop that housed solely Christmas merchandise. Trinkets galore....sparkling silver teardrop ornaments, jolly red felt 60s Santas, glass icicles, silver tinsels and garlands, little flocked reindeer sitting in cotton "snow," elves that mechanically "decorated" lit trees in each snow-flecked store window.
I remember your creaky floors, the narrow, narrow staircase that led from one crowded floor to another. I remember the smell of Grandma's attic within your walls, and your quiet holiday music bursting forth from dusty speakers overhead.
Such a magical place. It is pure magic in and of itself to step into a Christmas wonderland on a 90-degree day in mid-July. To call it an escape would not do. It was a total immersion into a wintry wonderland, and I can still remember walking slowly, wide-eyed and admiring every spectacle which laid beyond each turn of the aisles.
I am sad that I cannot visit you anymore. On my last trip there, some local townspeople sadly told me that you had been destroyed in a fire years ago. We did find the spot which you once sat, but it now holds other things....candles or spun glass or something ordinary and uninteresting. The Christmas novelties were all burned away, and all that's left is the cement shell of your outer walls, housing within them something not nearly as spectacular.
I dwelt on thoughts of you as long as they would linger, and for a minute, even despite the sweat running off of my forehead on this hot May afternoon, I imagined the coolness and wintry delight of your environment once more. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth, and I thanked God that He allows little memories to slip into our minds unaware. These little snippets of memories burst forth and bloom into complete relived moments within our imagination and mind's eye. These are just one of many things that make such ordinary days extraordinary.
I remembered the three or four times I visited you, one time in particular when I was with my grandparents for a week the summer after I turned eight.
I don't remember your name, but I do remember that you were an intricate little shop that housed solely Christmas merchandise. Trinkets galore....sparkling silver teardrop ornaments, jolly red felt 60s Santas, glass icicles, silver tinsels and garlands, little flocked reindeer sitting in cotton "snow," elves that mechanically "decorated" lit trees in each snow-flecked store window.
I remember your creaky floors, the narrow, narrow staircase that led from one crowded floor to another. I remember the smell of Grandma's attic within your walls, and your quiet holiday music bursting forth from dusty speakers overhead.
Such a magical place. It is pure magic in and of itself to step into a Christmas wonderland on a 90-degree day in mid-July. To call it an escape would not do. It was a total immersion into a wintry wonderland, and I can still remember walking slowly, wide-eyed and admiring every spectacle which laid beyond each turn of the aisles.
I am sad that I cannot visit you anymore. On my last trip there, some local townspeople sadly told me that you had been destroyed in a fire years ago. We did find the spot which you once sat, but it now holds other things....candles or spun glass or something ordinary and uninteresting. The Christmas novelties were all burned away, and all that's left is the cement shell of your outer walls, housing within them something not nearly as spectacular.
I dwelt on thoughts of you as long as they would linger, and for a minute, even despite the sweat running off of my forehead on this hot May afternoon, I imagined the coolness and wintry delight of your environment once more. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth, and I thanked God that He allows little memories to slip into our minds unaware. These little snippets of memories burst forth and bloom into complete relived moments within our imagination and mind's eye. These are just one of many things that make such ordinary days extraordinary.
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