frames

Once upon a time I had a job at the frame store in the Mall.  I helped to frame pictures, photographs, articles, paintings, and other various dreams of strangers and friends of friends from a high school I barely remember.  Here’s the thing I always hated about frames…and the glass that covers, preserves, protects, and yes these frames and glass may even make our dreams more attractive somehow.  But what I hate about it is the real reason for these frames is maturity, growing up, and the organization of a life that comes with all that.  You see frames strip us clean of spontaneity, creativity, and our need and ability to express ourselves and show the world who we are…ok well maybe not the whole world...but even to be able to express who we our to just ourselves; this may be most important of all.  We need to be able to wake-up, look around and re-acclimate to our life.  We need to be able to be reminded who we will be as we face the day.  Now, the beauty part of all this is, without frames, as we change, we could change our surroundings without spending an adult fortune.  Just simply rip it all down and replace the collage of YOU with a bunch of new this and that’s, and even some of those…and all for the price of a child’s dream (the cheap to free kind…not the expensive ones that most children would trade in for the boxes they come in).  Post Cards, Pictures and words cut out from magazines, and maybe a poster or two.  But NO!  Now it is time to grow up and put your dreams and other things in frames.  Frames that say “Hey it’s ok to change your mind when you are a kid, but when you reach a certain age, I demand you solidify who you are.  Frame yourself, make a choice, and stick with it…Never change again”…But if you must change you must also pay the price…a price many are not willing to pay, or in this economy not even able to pay.  So they just sit still in their neat pretty, and sometimes dusty and old, frames…pretending to be someone who fits into the frame of a life that no longer makes sense…..ok now where was I?  Oh yeah.  Once upon a time I had a job at the frame store in the Mall.