I once knew a woman with a basement full of picture frames. The basement was a low ceiling space with shadowy nooks and crannies and an enormous octopus furnace that groped its way all about. It hardly felt like the space of an artist, and yet it most certainly was.

The picture frames were everywhere. They were stacked on tables and workbenches, hung on walls and piled in rows on the gray painted cement floor. There were gilded frames and plain ones. There were frames huge and heavy and ornate and there were scores that were narrow and petite.

Down in this basement with flickering florescent lights and decades of dust, the proprietor would match pictures to frames in a manner careful and thoughtful. And the results were always splendid with the chosen frame complimenting or enhancing the artwork which it surrounded.

Visiting this basement and watching the framing process was like an art lesson in an unexpected medium.

Years ago I took a writing class where a picture frame was employed as a writer’s unlikely tool. The instructor asked each of us to focus the frame on an object in the room. One-by-one we took our turn framing the object close up. Then the instructor had each of us back up away from the object noting how the picture included more and more of the room. At first the frame surrounded only the object. In the end the frame took in much more of the room, but still included the object.

These many years later I can’t quote the instructor, but I can paraphrase him. “Write about the apple on the table, sure, but then back up and write about the feast and those surrounding the table and then back up further and take in the entire dining room.”

The other day my friend Therese was having a particularly hard day.

“I’m taking you to lunch,” I blurted.

Now I’m not a guy that “does” lunch. My favorite lunch is a table for one - namely moi, with a newspaper and my reading glasses and a ham sandwich. So blurting out a lunch invitation was out of character to say the least.

My favorite lunch place is across the street in Macy’s, a sweet little spot with soups, a healthy granola treat, one dollar cookies on Wednesday, and a delightful counter lady named Denice.

If you were to frame the picture of me at lunch over by Denice it is a solitary studied affair. The artist might title the work “Crabby man with newspaper and sandwich.”

But on this day, the artist had to back the frame up some to fit Therese and Denice in with me. I made the introductions, we got two soups, a sandwich to split, the cookies and coffee. Back up that frame a little further to fit in some small talk and some laughter.

While Denice was serving up the soup a lady joined Therese and me at the counter. And so back the frame up further to fit in the newcomer. And it turned out that it was the newcomer’s birthday. And one of us started singing “Happy Birthday.” And now the artist or the writer holding the frame had to back up even further to include everyone in the little place because we were all singing.

Settled in our seats and enjoying our lunch, the birthday gal stopped by to chat with Therese and me. She thanked us for the serenade and for making her birthday a Macy’s celebration. And for that moment, there was no room in this picture for hard days as a little bit of spontaneous joy hung ever so faintly in the air.

I should remember, at least occasionally, to fit into my frame, a bigger picture.