The Rose Chandelier - The Day The Lights Went Out

The light fitting was somewhat of an oddity. A chandelier of sorts, but rather than having hundreds of sparkling crystals drops (as was the considered norm) it had small pink roses. Two rows of perfectly formed, open bloomed roses that were seemingly perilously suspended from a tiny crystal bead and a wrought iron base. The centre of the light was a cream ceramic pendent that had a large opening for the actual light bulb to fit in. It was the only concession to modernity that it allowed. The delicate gold paintwork on the ceramic base further added to its fluidity and grace.

As a child, I had hated the light, or so my mother asserts. I would argue the case that it couldn’t possibly be true, that she must have misunderstood my true sentiments. But with ages comes the changing of tastes, and I have to concede that as a child my tastes ran more to the fairyland style of decorating, and as an adult, my understanding of the unusual and unique had become more refined.

I loved the rose tipped light that hung in the bedroom. It was the one room of retreat in the house that I was not quite a guest in, and not quite a member of. I shared the room with my young daughter, our meagre range of possessions fitting in easily around the mess that belonged to my mother and her diseased mind. At night, as I lay next to my baby in the queen sized bed I would stare at the rose chandelier, allowing it to fill my mind with sugar spun dreams and fantasies of living in times happier than the moment. It was the gateway to delusions that had the flawlessness of a life fresh and uncluttered with messy emotions, as if written in a romance novel that had the perfect happily ever after ending, rather than allowing the reality of life in the current period.

I lived there during the uneasy time of not wearing the wedding rings that had held such hope and promise and yet being married according to the legalities of society. It was the light fitting that I stared at as tears ran unchecked down my cheeks when I silently wept while I talked on a white plastic phone to the man I had once loved without reservation. As we argued about the rights and wrongs done to each other, I would stare at the roses, willing my imagination to transport me to a summer garden, away from the pain that I felt with the words that fell from his lips.

As the understanding of hopelessness by way of my recent history gradually bloomed in my heart, I turned to the muse of the rose tipped light fitting to encourage my heart to find other gardens of promise to fill my life. Hopes and ambitions long forgotten or ignored for being too worldly or impossible took root and start to grow.

The day when the drab yellow envelope with formal contracts to break spoken covenants arrived in the mail, it was as if the lights had gone out. No longer could the promise of yesterday hold me in stead, rather it was the rose tipped light that brought a level of calm to my body with a spirit still alive but crushed, forcing my mind to remember to breath. It was in the room with the light fitting I would fight to own when the original owner passed away, that I knew that I would find a way to survive and move beyond even the rose tipped chandelier.