Reflections on the Tenth Week of Spring

Early Monday morning, a crash woke me. I used the excuse of my book falling to the floor to get back to sleep. When I woke at 7:00, my book rested on the covers, George licked my arm, and a naked, energy efficient CFL bulb hung from the desk lamp. The Tiffany glass shade lay on the floor with a small hole, bent frame, and cracks. I swept the floor, shook the rug, and dumped shade, broken glass, and dust into a box for the trash. Spence and I drove to Ohio Tuesday and stopped at Cleveland Lighting. A young woman said they didn't have replacement shades, but I could try on line. I tired–including all sixty-nine pages of Amazon options. None came with a three and a half inch top opening, and none was as attractive as my broken relic with amber flowers tipping the intersections of eight cream panels. Wednesday at House of Lights, the salesman said I had three choices: find a shade at an antique store; buy a replacement lamp; or ask Mabel about repairs. “She does amazing work.” Mabel, a short woman well beyond retirement age with no Internet and no cell phone, works out of her bright yellow ranch house three days a week. She reverently pulled the dusty shade out of the box. “My mother had a lamp like this.” Mabel turned the shade to inspect the hole. “Did you know I'm the only person in Ohio doing ceramic repairs? This shade needs a lot of work.” She fingered the cracks. “It will take me two weeks, but, adding ceramic filling, I can fix it.”