It Took Me 10 Years to Find a Place For These Lamps. I Regret Nothing.

Project 365, Day 99/365

Before my fingers touched the keyboard tonight, I sat and stared around my dining room. What to write about…what to write about…I tried to coerce thoughts and lessons and profound things from my brain folds as I turned my head left and right. Nothing came. Then my eyes landed on this decorative metal pomegranate I have, collected during a time when I was big into fruit-themed decor. From there, my glance shifted over to my vintage brass pineapple, but that story and how I acquired it is a bit too robust for 11:21 on a Wednesday night. Another day friends.

As I looked around some more, and after having a staring contest with the lamp that’s in my view (the other covered by a big computer monitor) I figured, yeah okay, let’s talk about these lamps. What’s the point of having vintage pieces with a story if you never actually try to tell their story?

Except this story isn’t really about the lamps; not about their provenance, that is. I don’t know much about them beyond what the vendor told me all those years back on the Sunday I picked them up. 1960s…Murano glass. That about covers it. The story of these lamps is about me.

Back when I was in my mid-20s, actually, almost exactly 10 years ago, I moved from my hometown of Orlando to Boca Raton, a small tony little town in south Florida. I had followed a job that unbeknownst to me would essentially change the path of my life…but I suppose almost every decision you make does in one way or another. While my sister and brother didn’t live too far away, I very much felt alone in this new phase of my life. I had moved into my first adult apartment, I was living by myself for the first time ever, I was friendless and had to force myself to socialize. Thankfully, that job I started would come to grant me wonderful friends. But I digress.

As one of my attempts to leave the quiet, safe cocoon of my one-bedroom, I agreed to have brunch with a few new friends, so one Sunday, we all headed down to South Beach in pursuit of overpriced egg plates and maybe a mimosa or two. I probably had just enough money in my bank account at that time to barely afford said overpriced eggs, but this time in my life was marked with a not-so-great dependence on credit cards, so…I had made the decision that kindling new friendships was worth the debt.

I can’t remember where we ate, or even who all was there, but I do remember that someone suggested we walk through the vintage and antique street market we happened upon after brunch. I was just discovering my love for design and learning that not all things had to come from IKEA or Pier 1 Imports. Not that there’s anything wrong with either, but I had no idea the world that spun outside of mainstream big box stores. “Vintage” to me at the time was synonymous with “thrifted” which wasn’t anything I was interested in. (Oh young Arlyn, you’ll learn.)

So that street market was enticing to me. My apartment was half furnished and most decor items were emblazoned with a HomeGoods sticker I probably didn’t remove, so I was excited to see if maybe I would find a little something or other, just to say that I did. As we meandered in and out of vendor booths, making the kind of chit-chat new friends make, feeling the need to fill every silence, every lull an awkward moment that needed to be remedied, I saw them. A pair of bulbous, gleaming chartreuse glass lamps. My friend and I spotted them nearly at the same time, but I inquired about them first, which in my book, equates to calling shotgun. Too bad, so sad, they’re mine…even if I held my breath awaiting the price knowing full well that if they were more than…$10, they wouldn’t be coming home with me.

Well…they were $180. For the pair. Never in my LIFE had I even considered spending that kind of money on lamps. And even if I had, I certainly didn’t have the means to entertain a purchase seriously. But something came over me that day…likely the voice of my friend who insisted that was a steal and if I didn’t buy them, she would. What I didn’t know then that I know now is that friend…she ain’t so good with the budgeting. The lamps could have been $1,800 and she would have thought they were a steal and found a way to rationalize their purchase. But on some realm of reasoning, I’m kind of glad for her. I knew I didn’t have that much spare money in my main checking account, but I did have some in my savings, if only I could find a way to get it from account to account. “It’s Sunday. You can just withdraw it from your account, and when you get home, you can just transfer it back in, and you won’t get charged an overdraft fee,” I remember someone telling me. Man…don’t ever be that irresponsible, okay? That was dumb, but I did it. I begged the vendor to please hold the lamps for me while I went to get cash.

I went on the hunt for an ATM. I can recall sweating, nearly panting, thighs rubbing together in the hot, humid South Florida heat. Don’t ever expect to wear a cute, breezy dress in Florida, and your thighs don’t chafe. I’m warning you…from experience. I found a kind of sketchy, non-bank-affiliated ATM at the back of a building, that of course charged something like $8 as an additional fee…on top of what my bank would charge me for using an ATM that wasn’t theirs, but at the moment, I was blinded by my need for those vintage lamps.

There’s a good chance I did a half-run half-skip back to the booth, cash in hand, ready to stake my claim over lamps I had no business buying because I 100% couldn’t afford them. But I’ll tell you one thing: my friend wasn’t going to have them. I wasn’t going to go to her house and feel the failure oozing from those lamps every time I saw them. Nope, they were coming home with me, no matter what. Looking back, I should have tried to talk the man down in price. He said $180, and I handed over $180. What a newb.

And then, the dumbest thing happened.

The lamps, the very ones I depleted my account for, the very ones I desired in a blind obsession…they sat in a corner, unused, with no place to go the entire time I lived in that apartment. The lamps didn’t come with shades, and I wasn’t exactly rolling in excess funds to buy any. The wiring on them was also quite suspect, so I never dared actually plug them in. So there they sat, collecting dust for the remaining months in my first apartment.

And then, for the three years that I lived in my next apartment. In a corner, on the floor, collecting dust. Bad wiring, no lampshades. Taunting me…

And then, for the three years that I lived in my NEXT NEXT apartment. Lampshade-less, taunting me.

Friends, it wasn’t until seven years later that they finally found their home. Here, right in this dining room, where I sit every day, looking at them. Over those seven years, every time my friend would come over, she’d tempt me to take them off my hands. A few times here and there, I seriously considered letting them go, but man am I glad I didn’t.

Did I ever fix the wiring? Don’t be ridiculous. There are no outlets near this credenza where the lamps sit—as decor—because I can’t plug them in. Maybe in another seven years, I’ll fix that wiring, and have a home with more than two plugs so I can actually turn some lamps on. Dare to dream.

So, while it may have taken four apartments, seven years, more ATM fees than I had money to cover, and numerous acquisition failures by friends, my sweet, vintage, 1960s Murano glass lamps are home. They waited patiently for their time to (not) shine. May we all be as patient as my lamps.

See you tomorrow, FOAS.