Mildew and magic?
You’re kidding, right?
I’m not. Still, could you possibly imagine that an unpleasant encounter with mildew would lead me down the road to discovering Cupid? (Yes, I did say Cupid.) Not in a million years! But it did.
Sharing, with you, my journey down that road.
I’d done a thorough job of sorting and releasing decades of family heirlooms, inherited at my mother’s death. Granted, several items were stuffed back into a closet while I struggled with the nostalgic conundrum of “I don’t know what to do with this,” but felt too guilty to give away. (You been there?)
Soon, however, reality called. The not-so-lovely scent of mildew wafted out of a closet, the closet where I’d stashed my “I don’t know what to do with this,” remaining family heirlooms. Ugh! That truly unwelcome aroma of mildew overrode any remaining guilt I had regarding the release of those nostalgic items.
One of those heirlooms was a very large 21” x 25” framed photograph of my Ukrainian Jewish maternal grandparents, easily 100+ years old. They arrived on Ellis Island in 1906. I really wanted to keep that photograph. Its frame was overpoweringly mildewed, however. Just overpowering.
Fortunately, my inner Girl Scout stepped right to the fore. I settled the heavy frame in a plastic garbage bag and began, carefully, carving away at the framed photograph’s backing. (Those, long ago, Girl Scout carving skills just kicked right in. Probably way too late for a merit badge, right?)
I tossed the detritus into the plastic bag. By happenstance (luck, serendipity, good fortune, or whatever) I looked down at the contents accumulating in the garbage bag. Face up, there was a sepia photographic reproduction which had been used as the backing for my grandparent’s photo in the frame.
Yowzers. And it was Cupid!
The title, “Cupid Awake,” the date 1897, and the photographer’s name were all listed on the photographic reproduction. My google addiction kicked right in and I was on it in a flash! Discovered a series of these same photographic reproductions for sale, framed, on eBay and elsewhere, ranging in price from $20 to $200.
Who would have thought that, behind a 100+ year old photograph, I’d find my Cupid? As a realist, I discerned that discovering Cupid (and sharing this story with you) was more than enough to fill my starry eyes with wonder. I arranged a free, loving, and non-mildewed new home for my Cupid, now happily adorning a wall in a photographer friend’s living room. My closet is mildew-free, at last, and a heartfelt hallelujah to that.
Oh, wait, wait! There’s a tad more. Along with finding my Cupid, I was also gifted with a more intangible gift. (I love receiving gifts!) A belief that possibility resides in unanticipated and defective situations in our lives, happenings we can’t control. Just like my magical intersection of mildew and Cupid. I mean, really? Possibilities can still take breath in the midst of life’s many challenges. So sayeth my found Cupid…
I am soooo into ancestry and putting it all into “lifebooks.” I have photographs of my grandparents “courting” in the early 1920’s. I have photos of my other grandmother as a teenager. On the edges or back of some of the photos there are notations - “Josie and me down by the river” Who is Josie? Who is Me? What river? When? So, in my “lifebooks” and those of my children, I have identified every person in every photo. Everything is “glued down” in chronological order. I am about three years behind. I need to get back to it. I did my kids “lifebooks” and gave them to them one Mother’s Day - 10 or so years ago. I have about two dozen of my own. I figure they won’t toss my photos and “things” if they are glued down and identified. I could be very wrong. 🥸