A Beautiful Gift

Last week someone buzzed my apartment saying they had a delivery. When I went down there was a package for me wrapped in plain brown paper and no return address. And, it didn’t come through the mail. So someone personally dropped it off.

My first thought was anthrax! But I couldn’t resist and removed the brown paper. Then there was a box saying there was food inside. Poisoned food! Again, I couldn’t resist. I looked back at the handwriting and thought I recognized it. So I opened it up to this.

A beautiful handmade bud vase made by an old friend, Scott Connor. I’ve always loved everything he’s made and this was stunning. I couldn’t get a picture that does it justice, but it has an amazing shape which is different at every angle, and I love the shades of blue, the weight of it, everything. In a just universe Scott Connor would have spent his life making nothing but art and he would be very wealthy by now.

Thank you so so much, Scott. I will cherish this. I’m keeping it in a spot on my desk where I can always see it but where the cats can’t easily knock it off. (They do so love to knock things off things.)

The title of the piece is AND NOW? (There’s a backstory to that name. They are the words of the main prompt on Echo, the social network I started decades ago with Scott and many other people’s help. Whenever you do anything on Echo the command is typed in at the AND NOW? prompt.)

Vase by Scott Connor

Stacy Horn

I've written six non-fiction books, the most recent is Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York.

View all posts by Stacy Horn →

2 thoughts on “A Beautiful Gift

  1. Gorgeous piece! If I didn’t know what it was, and the scale, I’d almost think it was a bead. Surprise gifts are so nice to receive – especially in stressful times.

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