The Cut Crystal Flowers and Pineapple.

A peculiar statement on isolation, emptiness, anonymity and bibelots. Bibelots is just another word for small, decorative and collectable trinkets and detail ornaments.

People always assumed that she lived alone.

She didn't live alone.

She lived with the past.

On the windowsill shelf, in the living room, on display, were her collection of decorative trinkets.

Mother had taught her to collect and display bibelots. "The bibelots of a woman of culture", Mother always said, "are a telltale sign of fine taste and refinement."

Mother collected boxes - jewelry boxes were Mother's bibelots of choice. And Mother created quite an impressive collection during her lifetime. Boxes of all kinds - jeweled, enameled, cloisonne.

She wasn't Mother, though. Boxes didn't suit her at all,as they did Mother. Especially because boxes, whose only function was to be bibelots on display, were always empty.

And emptiness is disturbing.

So she boxed the boxes and put them away.

Mother is no longer the matron of the house. Mother is gone.

She now wore that crown.

And her bibelots will now be on display, she had decided - just moments after she took over.

Her bibelots, unlike Mother's decorative boxes, are made of delicate and intricately cut fine crystal.

They served a purpose. They captured the sunlight as it dared to enter through the window into her home, and held it captive in her living room.

Flowers and pineapples were always her favorite crystal pieces.

Flowers and pineapples. All that blossoms, blooms,and ripens.

"Ah, the succulence, the aroma, the scent of all that blossoms and blooms and ripens.", she would say to herself everyday as she gently picked up and admired her collection, her bibelots.

Cold to the touch, even in the sunlight, the sharp edged cut crystal flowers along with her crystal pineapple sat there, steadfast, like weaponed guards always by her side in life, on the window ledge.

Moments of blooming, blossoming and ripening, the joys of life, were hers, through lifeless, lethal glass.

Cut Crystal Flowers And A Pineapple Suzy Valtsioti