Monday, October 31, 2016

A Treatise on Abandoned Things


I've always been drawn to items seemingly forgotten, left behind.  Old houses empty of all but ghosts, fallen trees, cemeteries left to crumble at their leisure.  Scraps of paper with a quote that feels profound, or just one fascinating word waiting to dance across your tongue.

I love the idea of leaving random things for someone else to find, or to be the person that happens upon a strange keepsake.  I keep a jar specifically for collecting the feathers that visitors to my backyard leave behind, and my house would not be complete without the numerous rocks and sticks that have found their way into my possession.

Stories on things other people have stumbled into have always fascinated me.  Whether you’ve found an actual family heirloom, just a spangley rock and lovely patch of moss, or even one odd skein of handspun yarn that has too little yardage for anything productive, but is treasured nonetheless.  Whatever it is, I’m interested in hearing about it.

Found objects being what they are, it always amuses me how people will talk of "finding Jesus" (the phrasing, not the sentiment) and I will absolutely jump in with how I once found Ra* in the walmart parking lot.

I'm definitely a "find-a-penny-pick-it-up" sort of person, though I do not know about what luck might follow.  I've never been afraid of a found object**, so I can't understand why I've been so intimidated by something so simple as an abandoned blog.

A while back when I got to the end of my latest paper journal I made the conscious decision to not begin another.  In some ways that was freeing, because it had gotten to the point where it was obligation rather than a facilitator of growth (after all, there are only so many times you can re-hash the same frustrating situation without driving yourself insane).

But I've come around to the idea that, maybe, that was the wrong choice.  I keep thinking I don't say anything--here, in person, on my fb page--because I don't have anything TO say.  And in some ways that is true.

But I still have all these words tumbling around in my mind.

I've written so many posts here over the past year.....in my head.  So many things I did and didn't want to say.  I don't know where to, or if I should, start.

I still don't know where I want to go with this blog.  I never have.  But I think it's time for it to stop being an Abandoned Thing.  Time for me to notice that glint and glimmer, to dust off the shiny, and pick it up.

 
 
*True story.  Granted, it was almost assuredly the letters somehow removed from a Dodge Ram, but it was really sunny that day, sooo.....

**Though I do very much use my own intuition and common sense over whether or not it is right to pocket the item in question.

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