It Spoke to Me

Have you ever seen something and just had to have it? It is almost like it is having a conversation with you. “Take me, take me,” it whispers. Well that is what happened to me when I went to an outdoor art festival this summer. I was summoned by a photograph.

I had been up and down those sidewalks twice. Not one piece of art spoke to me. Well that is not really true. Another piece of art spoke to my husband and me but it was a thousand dollars and our wallets drowned out the whispers with, “No, No!: My husband and I went home disappointed. In the afternoon…we returned to look again. At the very last tent…there it was. I saw it from afar and the closer I got the more I was drawn to it. It beckoned me to get close, to look from all angles, to admire its simplicity and elegance at the same time.

I had to have that photo and knew exactly where I would place it in my home. The photographer laughed when he saw me. “That is the one, huh?” he said.

“It is talking to me, I replied. How much?”

I did not have enough cash. “Do you take credit of bank cards?” My husband had wandered off and there was no way I was going to let another customer walk off with my whispering photo.

I don’t have the machine, my wife does. She is in another tent up the road, he explained.”

“I am really honest. I am a teacher. Do you trust me to take it and go pay for it?” I was taking no chances.

“Well…usually I wouldn’t but…my wife is a teacher too…so okay…here is where you will find her.”

I sit here in my living room remembering where it came from and how it happens to be displayed above the fireplace for me to admire each morning as I have my coffee and prepare for another day. The whispering photo of a barn in an ice storm is where it belongs.