Antique Shops
Perusing through the two-story antique shop, the heavenly scent of Corday Toujours Moi wafted through the air. I searched for the scent, following my nose until it reached a small white table adorned with various perfumes. My eyes wandered lazily from left to right, reading the names of the nearly-empty bottles. Narcisse Bleu, Guerlain Shalimar, one with no label, and then finally my eyes met the half-empty bottle of Corday Toujours Moi. I held the vial inches from my face, closing my eyes, and inhaling the vintage scent of life in the Roaring 20’s as deeply as my lungs would allow.
Slowly, the image of the table in the two-story antique shop faded, and a visage of a beautiful young woman pampering herself in the boudoir suffused my senses. “Alice Blue Gown” by Edith Day and Rosario Bourdon played as she sat at the vanity, applying rouge to her soft, powdered cheeks and humming the tune. As I daydreamed of a time passed, I wondered what kind of life that young woman led. Was she a bold woman? Meek? Was she in love? Did she live a fulfilled life? A hand on my shoulder interrupted my thoughts. I startled, and turned to see my love smiling at me. “You’ve got to check this out!” He exclaimed excitedly, and I followed him a few feet over to where a Kodak Auto Revolving Back Tele Graflex camera sat upon an old, dusty shelf.
He was beaming with excitement, likely musing about who owned this dinosaur, and what it was like to wield what we consider to be somewhat of a contraption nowadays. I let him get lost in his thoughts, and once he managed to peel his eyes off of the treasure, we locked eyes, smiled, and continued on. We explored through the overflowing antique shop for hours after. Looking through old band and movie posters, at the many small figurines, the china enclosed safely in glass cabinets, and the bookshelves decked out with books covering many subjects, some even in different languages. We sat there on the floor, grabbing as many books as we could and skimming them until our noses could take no more of the dusty history that permeated the air of the shop.
As we left, I quietly thought to myself about the wonders we found in the maze of what felt like historical artifacts. It was astounding, how what someone once saw as just being “stuff” becomes significant once their time has passed. How we search for a vision, a scent, an aesthetic that can give us some insight to what life used to be in that particular time frame. A store like that can hold so much more significance than one could perceive. So much so, that I encourage you, that anytime you find yourself driving past an antique shop, stop and take a moment out of the monotonous droll of routine and explore. You may find yourself amazed, realizing that you are, indeed significant. You don’t know who in the future will pick up your bottle of Marc Jacobs’ Daisy, or discover your old iphone 5s, or perhaps even find a little trinket that you held close to your heart as a young child. There are many things in this life that can make us feel small and insignificant, but one day, something you owned could become a historical artifact to someone. An exceptional finding in stacks upon stacks of stuff packed together in a small room.
-from my website, bychloejean.com