I once read that nobody ever really owns an umbrella, we merely borrow them for a time.  I love the poetry in that line of thinking because I really love a beautiful umbrella and yet I don’t own a single one that’s more than a few years old.  I still miss a big hotel umbrella that a friend nicked/borrowed from the Mark Hotel on New York’s Upper East Side.  That umbrella made me feel like Holly Golightly, living just beyond my means and dreaming big in New York City.  My heart still beats for a big red ruffled umbrella that I once owned that looked like the inside of a can can skirt.  That umbrella made me feel like singing — and dancing — in the rain.

Rihanna Umbrella giphy

It’s because they are this fleeting commodity in our lives and yet so infinitely utilitarian that I love to give…