You've Got Bunny Mail

Even though my shop was closed on Sunday, I offered to meet a customer and open it for her. 

When we got to the door, we discovered my neighbor’s planter had been smashed on my doorstep. I was grateful it wasn’t thrown through the glass door.

Upon checking the cameras, the plant had been broken at the door around 12:30am. Then ten minutes later a homeless man pushing a shopping cart stopped and moved the terracotta shards and the rosemary bush to the side of the door so that the door could be opened.

I was surprised by the consideration to help clean the mess. I was grateful that my oversized turquoise planter wasn’t the victim of the Saturday night attack. While it’s too heavy to lift, it could have been pulled down. 

My boyfriend suggested that I move the planter inside. I reassured him that no one was going to mess with it. 

On Tuesday night at 11:39pm, a man got out of his car and walked past my shop. He watched and waited for a car to pass and then bent down and spray painted my planter. 

I reported it to the police in the morning and asked if the tag meant anything. The officer said he only recognized the first letter as a T. 

I tried to decipher it. I photographed the vessel and turned the picture on my phone. He wrote Tesoro. 

This baffled me. Nothing antisemitic. Not his name. Not some expletive. 

I didn’t have time to google “how to remove paint and not ruin the glaze of the pot,” nor time to clean it, so I simply turned the graffiti to the backside and opened my shop.

Then it occurred to me, that planter is like most of the items from my store that I have in my home.

I take home the scratched, chipped, torn, and stained items that I could never sell and display them with the damaged side hidden from view. 

One stone jar holds Vinny’s dog treats. A frame has a photo of my dad wearing lavender bell bottoms in front of his lime green Fiat 850 convertible. A Jellycat bunny stitched with an ultra suede envelope is now delivering love messages between me and my boyfriend. It stays in the kitchen until it delivers “bunny mail” on a desk or bedside table.

I’m always fascinated how imperfect things hold no value in my store but are tremendously valuable in my home. 

Had they not been damaged they never would have come home to me and given me the joy they do. 

Instead of remaining upset that a customer ruined a product, I use my Jedi mind tricks to see gratitude that someone wanted to come to my shop and was curious to learn more about that item. 

Perhaps I’ll turn the turquoise planter back around and ask Jasmine to paint over it. She’s the woman with special needs who paints the black and white gift wrap paper for my store. 

When I first hired her, I thought I was helping her. But it turns out her superpower is being my teacher. 

She has taught me patience and gratitude that my mind can see value and beauty in what we perceive as imperfect. 

There is only what we want to believe; and I choose to always see the good.