Monday, January 25, 2016

BLAST FROM THE PAST: WILL YOU LIGHT MY CANDLE?

I wrote this post on January 19, 2010. It had thirty-four page views and zero comments. Maybe you can help ease it out of its loneliness.




Musings(or ravings?) of an itchy 6 a.m.

The alarm goes off. The neighbor's car, parked so close to my bedroom window that I feel it is inside me, roars to life.

The candles are missing.

They were - are - the perfect candles for the candle holders. You remember - the wood candle holders on the mantle?

I put them away when I decorated the mantle for Christmas. The candles and antique holders and old family photos in frames all went in the same cabinet. Everything there last night except the candles, the perfect candles, short, fat, ivory, perfect on the mantle. Replaced for a few weeks by a gold garland and multi-colored twinkling Christmas lights.

I put the decorations back in their boxes two days after Christmas but left the mantle bare until last night. Everything there, except the candles, the candles that should be in the wood holders, one at each end of the mantle, next to the old faded photos in frames, one under the antique plates from Norway, one under the tiny water color of the Mathematics Bridge at Cambridge University in England.

Where are the candles? Searched Search Searching Will Search

They have gone to the place called "Lost."

The mantle not right without them.

Suddenly, nothing right.

"I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."

The candles, the perfect candles, purchased so long ago from the woman at the crafts fair, cannot possibly be replaced.

Note from the present: I never found the candles. Sometimes the one thing that works goes away and can't be recovered.

40 comments:

  1. That's sure a mystery...just like your mention of a love that was expected to last but didn't. The light went out and darkness prevails. Where are those darn candles??

    Hope you are well. My brother and sister-in-law left yesterday. We had them for an extra day since their flights were cancelled because of Winter Storm Jonas so that was fun. Hopefully I can get back to blogging!


    Nice Blast from the Past. You've been blogging for a long time, that being from 2010!

    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. I began blogging at the end of 2009. My blog has gone through a number of incarnations. I'm glad you had fun with the brother and sister-in-law. I've been sick, so I haven't been online for a few days. I need more recovery time, but I feel human again.

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  2. They were here in Empire. You must have channeled them here to live with me for a while. They looked great on my mantel but one day they disappeared.
    R

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  3. "Sometimes the one thing that works goes away and can't be recovered." That line caught me in my emotional core (the kiddies call it "the feels" but I'm too dignified for such shorthand--sips brandy with pinky extended in a grotesquely opened robe). These days I pray for 34 views. I don't count page views anymore, just the tumbleweeds that drift past.

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    1. When I started blogging, I looked at my stats eagerly each day. Now, I look occasionally. Sometimes I'm shocked by a day with 700 views. I seem to average around 250 - 300. Willy Dunne Wooters assures me that most of it is spambot.

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  4. Replies
    1. Yes, especially when the people who lived next door started a car at six every darn morning. I'm so glad they are gone.

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  5. Janie, I can't believe you didn't add a video from the "would you like my candle" scene in Rent. It would be so Janie! Love ya, girl!

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    1. So you noticed that I have a passionate affair with Rent. My son gave us tickets to see it in Baltimore many years ago. I was kind of confused by "moo with me," which I now love. Love you, too, cutie pie.

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  6. So what's on the mantle now, six years later? Life moves on.

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    1. The same candle holders are there, but now with pink candles. Photos of my parents as children. Photos when my parents were newlyweds. My favorite is my dad in his aviator's cap during World War II when he was a pilot in the Army Air Corps.

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  7. Makes me think of Robyn's novel, which I just completed...love that was expected to last. How strange that the candles were never found. Maybe thrown out with wrappings? Hmmm.

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    1. I think my son used them for a romantic tryst and didn't want to tell me.

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  8. Oh yes. Sometimes things vanish into thin air, never to be seen again. When they felt so perfect they can be missed for a long time. I hope you bought something new and better to replace them. :)

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    1. I discovered that I had some other candles in the house that were the right size for the holders, which were made from the spokes of a spinning wheel. The candles aren't the same color, but it's better than holders with no candles. The holders felt sad and neglected when they were empty.

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  9. That's a long time to be looking for candles! I hate when things like that happen, I can't seem to let it go either.

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    1. It's okay. I've had other candles for a long time.

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  10. Nice post. I think we all have posts we feel should have gotten more attention and deserve another airing.

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  11. You have been blogging for a long time. Too bad about the candles never being found...

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  12. They probably went to the place where socks in the dryer go.

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  13. Aww. I can feel the heartbreak in this post. I assume it's a true story? Big hugs to you although I feel as though you've come through it and are much stronger now. Sometimes those hurts linger long after, though... They weaken, but they're still there.

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    1. I wrote that post about eight months after I moved to Florida. My divorce was underway but not finished. I'm much happier now.

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  14. I looked around--they're not here, either!!

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    1. Thanks for trying. I think someone lit my candles when I was out of town and didn't want to admit to his thievery. He had a young lady here. Oo la laa.

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  15. Pretty. Sad.

    You know, there have been socks I never saw again. :(

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    1. I've had panties disappear, but I guess I left them in some man's bedroom. Don't tell Willy Dunne Wooters.

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  16. I feel frustrated for you. This is well written, and I'm thinking about things that were special to me but completely vanished. Nowhere to be found. Sorry your candles have not come out from hiding.

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    1. I lost some precious items during the divorce. X said I could store stuff in our house until I was ready to bring the rest of my things to Florida. I didn't get it in writing. The precious is gone. *wrings hands and sighs*

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  17. Maybe Wee Willy Winkie took them.

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    1. Will you please chase him down and take them away from him? I assume he hangs out at your pad.

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  18. Janie, what a shame! But, if you're like me one day, even though it's already been 5 years, you just may find those lost candles.

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    1. I feel quite certain they are gone for good. A certain someone had a romantic encounter with a young woman when I was out of town.

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  19. I know what that's like. Also, sometimes the one person that works goes away and can't be recovered.

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    1. I'm better off without some people. One has broken my heart, but I still pray and hope for her return.

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Got your panties in a bunch? Dig 'em out, get comfortable, and let's chat.