Unanticipated Joy!

I’m a professional artist. I recently received notice from my online printer that calendars I ordered saying they’d been delivered. When I realized I hadn’t received them, I checked the delivery address and saw I’d inserted the wrong one; my package had gone to a business in a distant city.

I vaguely recognized the name of the company  and when I Googled to find contact information, I recognized it belonged to a woman who’d visited my studio two or three years before looking for a painting for her office. I never heard from her. I now saw from the company website that her surname is Joy. Eager to retrieve the misdirected calendars, I called and spoke with Ms. Joy. Would she forward them to me—I’d reimburse, etc?

Ms. Joy replied along the lines of “Of course. Actually I was just getting ready to call you!  I’ve seen a painting on your website I’d like to purchase if it’s still available. If it is, we can combine transactions and I’ll send you my check with the calendars.”

The painting she wanted, as it was listed on the site, was labeled “Friendly Barn (Hello, Yellow).” Yes, the painting’s still available; I’ll send you an invoice with a discount for helping to correct my delivery error.”

An art purchase in November is always welcome, but this one was remarkable in that Ms. Joy was about to call me but I called her first—about a matter that was entirely unrelated to a sale, in fact, was a mistake, entirely unintended by me! Thrilled with the serendipity of the whole thing, I went down to the basement where my husband was framing paintings to tell him what had happened.

There I spied the painting leaning against a wall. I turned it over to make sure I’d signed it and there, staring me in the face was a title I didn’t associate with that painting. It wasn’t “Friendly Barn (Hello Yellow)”. At some point, unremembered by me, I’d written in black ink on the reverse side of the painting, “Unanticipated Joy!”

And so it was!