Happy Secrets
Look around. Happy secrets are coming your way. For example, the U.S. Postal Service has just released a Forever stamp to mark the August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse. Their special thermochromic ink allows the heat of your finger to change the dark eclipse image to that of a bright moon. On the back of each sheet of stamps is a map of the diagonal route the eclipse will take across the country from Oregon to South Carolina. A secret followed by a surprise.
I recently purchased the most stunning trove of baroque cocktail watches from the 60s. Of course they don’t work. When I proudly showed one to a friend, she told me a secret. She wears a similarly challenged pendant watch from the same era. It belonged to her grandmother. My friend has set the watch to the time that she and her husband exchanged their wedding vows. Love that. I was thinking of having the watches fixed, but not anymore.
Secrets are all around. In the pocket of my Jane’s Vanity smoking jacket is a slip of paper. I always forget about it between wearings. It says, “We are what we are-/Are made of old things,/Come back. Clearly,/Brilliant as the Sun.” This secret message, given to a random member of the audience, concluded the performance I attended (wearing jacket) of August Wilson’s one-man play How I Learned What I Learned. A treasure.
What happy secrets are you weaving into the everyday? Perhaps your choice of gorgeous underthings? A tiny framed baby photo by the washing machine? A special meeting arranged for noon? If only we knew the time. Don’t ask me. My watch is, well, you know...
-Kate L