The collector

Eons and eons ago, when the world was still new, and virgins still lived on it, I had a unicorn. Actually, I had two; actually, I still have them. My sister-in-law Rita gave them to me, two beautiful cream porcelain unicorns. They sat on the piano for years. Then my daughter began the tradition of giving me a unicorn every Christmas. This tradition began in 1987, so you do the math. Unicorns are neither mythical or extinct- they have been transfigured into porcelain and ceramic and stone and glass, and they eventually end up here where they belong.

I guess those unicorns started my career as a collector. That, and the kindness of family and friends. A few years later my godson Ian started the tradition of giving me angels. I now have a shelf of angels in the same curio that contains my unicorns. My sister gave me our grandmother's teapot. Even though I don't like tea, I do like teapots, and before I knew it, my hubby and other lovely people deluged me with teapots.

I love anything miniature and so have a small collection of miniature furniture and a moderate collection of miniature tea sets. (Again with the tea! Have I mentioned I don't like tea?) I have a small collection of Boyd's little Victorian girls, simply because they charmed me. I have a collection of mannekins in my bathroom, and a collection of pitchers in the kitchen. I love PICTURES as well, and the walls of our house are graced with many beautiful works of art. We may have to move; I am running out of wall space.

My largest collection by far, however, is my faery collection. I have loved faeries since childhood, and for the longest time it was really hard to find them. I carried one faery all the way from England because he was, and is, so uniquely beautiful and so rare. Until fairly recently, it was a real coup to find two or three faeries a year. However, in the past few years they have become easier to find, and now friends and family are been buying them for me, too. Right now, as I look at a 16-foot expanse of bookcases in my living room, I can tell you that the top of it is completely inhabited by faeries. Faeries peek out of my plants, and dangle from my lamps. I have "hidden" at least one faery in every room of my house (except Dave's bathroom- he draws the line at faeries watching him bathe). There are faeries in the bedroom, the guest room, the kitchen, the dining room and they all bring me great joy.

My granddaughters were collectors for a little while. Kendall collected Boyd’s bears. She’s now, at 10, too old for them. Haley collected angels. She now disdains to collect anything so “girly girl”. Delaney collects faeries. She sometimes collects MY faeries. She is the only granddaughter still interested in her collection, and it touches me that she chose to collect something so dear to my own heart. (I have a four piece collection of granddaughters, by the way- but Emily is too little to collect anything except hugs just yet.)

I love all my collections, but the two that really obsess me are faeries and pictures. And pictures of faeries, for that matter. I have “Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Edward Robert Hughes hanging on the wall opposite me as I type this. And a watercolor of Fairy Land my mother painted when I was 5 or 6 hangs above the bookcases in the living room, an integral part of the faery population there. My best bud Marcia gave me a plaque with dancing faeries that reads “groweth young” and every time I look at my beloved faeries, I do.