It has arrived.

Do you remember this post? I ordered the curio service from Leafcutter Designs and have been eagerly awaiting my mystery package ever since. I had to provide 20 words that meant something to me, and Lea would then find me the perfect item based on those words. It was all such a mystery! These were my words: London, vintage, Dickens, books, dainty florals, tea, treasure chest, aqua, green, tiny, sewing, daguerreotype, dumbwaiter, lantern, passageway, dark, carriage, Victorian, rocks. I received my package today:


I got this adorable little milk glass bird. What is really great is I didn't even tell Lea that I love milk glass! I still didn't quite understand how she decided upon this item with my 20 words until I read the note she enclosed. It reads as follows:

Dear Amy,

Just for you, I have chosen this vintage milk glass Christmas tree bulb in the shape of a bird. Your words "lantern," "passageway," "dark," "rocks," and "dainty" reminded me of the phrase "canary in a coalmine." Early coalmines did not have ventilation systems, so caged canaries were brought down into new seams because canaries are especially sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide. The miners' air supply was safe as long as the canary kept singing; a dead canary would trigger a quick evacuation. This method of detecting poisonous air was used well into the 20th century and your little bird is from around 1930. To bring a canary down into a mine is like carrying a little bit of sunshine and sky into the deep dark depths of dangerous work - a little bit of warm beating breath into an unforgiving hardness. Your little milk glass bird combines a canary and a mining lantern into one. I can see it down there glowing in its little cage - being carried by a large rough hand. I am not sure if it is there by force or its own will. To live like a canary in a coalmine might mean to be heartlessly sacrificed by those that are more powerful, but it could also serve as a warning to others - to see ahead and maybe even sacrifice oneself willingly to save the rest. Or - and perhaps most importantly - it means we should always keep singing in the face of danger, always keep glowing through the inevitable darkness of being. Despite the inescapable cage, we are all capable of flight. It was my delight to choose this for you."

I think my little bird is lovely. Thank you, Lea! Oh, gosh, I'm already itching for another mystery....