Found Objects

"Did you find anything special," Blackie asked.

T. nodded. "Come over here," he said, "and look."

-- Graham Greene, Shock!

Found pink rubber bracelet 11-30-14

"And isn't the whole point of things -- beautiful things -- 

that they connect you to some larger beauty?"

-- Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

On the windowsill in my mudroom is a collection of random objects.

A purple plastic magnetic number "2." A small wiffle ball. A feather. The plastic trailer from either a toy train or a toy truck advertising Leikeim (a German brewery) "Limonaden" (lemon soda). A miniature bobble-headed toy cat.

I found each of these things on my walks. 

I often find interesting things on my walks, sometimes on bike rides. 

Lost things.

Discarded things.

Fallen objects.

Sometimes I pick these fallen objects up and put them in my pocket and bring them home. Yesterday was particularly bountiful. By the time I returned home, I had a pocketful, and a handful. It was like a treasure hunt.

In a four-mile trek around my town I'd found:

a deflated balloon bouquet
a rusty razor blade
a cheap silver bracelet
a broken rubber bracelet
a rock painted pink
a theater ticket
a pinwheel
a gold star
an Easter egg

Sometimes I photograph the objects. Some I photograph here at home. Others I leave where they are and return later to photograph them in situ.

Yesterday's collection got me thinking.

I've been on the fence about whether I want to do a 365 days project for 2015. Mostly because I've been waiting for an idea to strike, an idea compelling enough to get me excited about sustaining my streak for yet another year.

I think I found it.

I found it in the stuff I found. 

I was photographing this dirty, broken pink cancer awareness bracelet imprinted with the word "strength." It's just cheap rubber. A bit of trash. Found on a roadside. Nothing special. Broken. Useless. 

But the image of it struck me as somehow lovely. Beautifully tragic. Ironic and incongruous. Hopeful? Hopeless? All of the above. I look at it now and this simple, fallen object tells a story.

Artists make art from found objects all the time. (It's the best kind of recycling. It's also a helpful way to clean up the neighborhood.) So for next year, I think maybe that's what I'll do. 

Who knows? It might be a good idea.

Look out for fallen objects!

A Strong Guy To Do The Heavy Lifting

" ... but even strong women need an arm to lean on now and then."

-- J.D. Robb, Glory in Death

Leo and ballerina Barbie 6-13-14

"Strong people don't put others down. 

They lift them up."

-- Michael P. Watson

My son Leo goes lifting at the gym almost every day.

He goes there to lift heavy weights in order to get stronger for football so he can knock people down.

For the past several months, though, he's been doing a different kind of lifting.

He and his buddy, Mikey, signed up as danseurs for a mostly-girls dance academy that needed strong guy partners to lift the ladies in their season-ending show. 

Their show opened last night, and Leo made his dancing debut.

I was so proud of all the kids, and impressed as hell. But I was especially proud of and impressed by my big, strong, athletic boy who showed his brute strength in a softer, gentler, more elegant way as he gracefully lifted, held, supported and spun lithe, lovely dancers in leotards, satin toe shoes and tulle.

Most of the girls in the program have been dancing for years -- some of them their entire young lifetimes.

But Leo and Mikey were first-timers. Beginners. Rookies. You'd never know it. They danced with poise, maturity, sensitivity, confidence and seemingly effortless strength. The girls trusted the guys' strong arms and athleticism to hold them securely, and they did. The two of them even busted out some pretty fancy footwork of their own.

Leo's strength showed the most though, in the tremendous courage it took to open himself to the unfamiliar, to step out and try something completely brand new, and to stick with it through months of long rehearsals in order to get it right, and then to do what he'd learned -- wearing nothing but a tunic and tights -- in front of hundreds of people. 

That's a kind of strong you can't get in any gym or weight room. That's the kind of strong that burns like a hot little blue flame in a magical mysterious place somewhere deep down inside some people. 

It was a beautiful thing to see in my son, and in every young dancer who took the stage.

Practice for the fall football season will start up pretty soon, and Leo will again shift his focus to knocking down the opposition. And that's cool. I am equally proud of him whether he's sacking a quaterback or carefully helping his partner hold a perfect Penché.

Either way, there's something pretty damned special about watching your own kid do something big and brave and beautiful. 

It's ... oh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Wait, I've got it.

Uplifting.