Right. It’s time to clear out the shed in the garden. I am finally moving again, to a lovely two-bedroom bungalow, just in time, as my knee operation is scheduled in six months’ time. Time to get rid of unwanted rubbish. My god! There are still cardboard boxes here from the last move, over sixteen years ago.
I open the first large box which is on the floor under the wooden shelves. There is a blue blanket wrapped round a rather large object. I unwrap it carefully to find a painting. It’s a copy of Vincent Van Gogh's White Roses. I thought I had got rid of it decades ago. Mmm, the frame is rather nice, mahogany, worth keeping maybe. The white roses look like a mass of cotton wool balls against a green wall. The curlicues of the petals though, which look as soft as silk and ephemeral as snow, are on the turn. A few fallen roses - crumpled like sodden handkerchiefs. What looks like baby hedgehogs curled up ready to die are but a few fallen leaves. Other leaves within the roses are already blackened by death. No, not for me. I prefer bright colourful paintings, ones of endless sky and mountains.
I remember this framed print was a gift from my father when I was going off to university. We never had the same taste. It reminds me now of how easily he discarded me without a penny, throwing me out as if I was one of those dead leaves. Just because I chose freedom, travelling, adventures and joy, instead of meeting his high expectations of studies, jobs, marriage and children.
I do a little jig as the painting lands in the skip. Ow! My knee. I giggle.
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