Close to Nowhere

We all have regrets in life. Driving home from dialysis one night last week, I was cold, as usual, and wrapped in a scarf/shawl type thing, plus other things

My mind wandered to a shawl I'd nearly bought once, and that shawl is one of the regrets in my life.

My friend Jane and I were on a cross-country drive, now nearly 20 years ago, to visit my aunt in New Mexico. We stopped in Dallas, Texas, to spend the night and see "the grassy knoll" where President Kennedy was shot.

We also went into NeimanMarcus. That was such a fabulous department store. We just knew we were shopping among people that owned oil wells and lived soap opera lives.

There was a clearance floor and we found a lot of stuff there. I still have a box that something came in that says Neiman-Marcus on it. I have no clue what was in the small, white box though.

We also wandered the other floors and in one section there was a huge display of scarves. I love anything I can wrap up in and I spent an enjoyable bit of time touching and examining all the pretty fabrics and colors.

That's until I saw "the" scarf/shawl. Then I fell madly in love. This beautiful thing was black velvet with an intricate design burned into it. No, I don't know why or how they burn it, in fact, it's probably not burned at all. But it was beautiful, stunning. I wanted it. And it was on sale!

I don't remember the original price. But the sale price was $200.

I kept telling myself that we still had a week or so left of our trip, that we were going to a souvenir shop in Mexico one day and $200 for a shawl I had no need for at all was way out of my price range.

But I loved that shawl. It hurt my heart to hang it back up and walk away without buying it.

To this day, when I remember it, which I do frequently, I regret not buying it.