POCKETS

I went on what we used to call a "pick-up-the-worms" walk. After a rainy night when Theo was little, he and I walked up and down the street rescuing the worms that wandered too far from the rain-clogged soil. They lay on the street wiggling and helpless. So we scooped them up with a leaf and set them back on the dirt.

The worms today reminded me of other things that Theo picked up--rocks, leaves, snake skins--that ended up in my pocket. Funny what you will find in your pockets. Recently I put a coat on that I hadn't worn for awhile. In the pocket I found a Euro coin leftover from a rain-glorious trip to Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

The view from our B&B in Amsterdam on a rainy evening.

Those small pocket treasures become talismans, memory-keepers, to me.

 Four pocket objects lie in a line in front of my computer keyboard. Three of them are stones. All of them are smooth and cool to my touch. One is a small heart-shaped stone that I found on a beach. I've picked up several heart-shaped stones since then and I wonder how the stone becomes this shape through the pounding of the waves.

Bill's parents kept all their extra coins from their numerous travels. At that time, banks didn't exchange loose coins so they wound up in a forgotten box deep in a drawer in a bureau that followed his mom to assisted living. The European coins have no value now since the exchange period offered by the European banks is long past.

I think of taking them to the beach and, like ashes, scattering them into the waves, knowing that they will eventually be washed smooth, maybe stuck against some rock so that they end up heart-shaped to be marveled at by another small collector.  They may end up in someone else's pocket some day.

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Thank you, Bill, for the two rocks photos!

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Another great grey photo by Jan Hersh. How many shades of grey do you see?