Twas the Night Before...

 

Several weeks before Christmas. my mother and sister were in town to attend Prelude events, shop, and soak up the Maine weather, because Florida is so dismal in December. After watching Santa arrive by lobster boat, we walked around town. I stopped into a shop called The Hut, and spotted a necklace I liked but couldn't decide on at the time. It was sterling silver, and made by the jeweler Devon Dowd who owned the shop .

I returned Christmas Eve, in a cold drizzling rain, after dropping a load of firewood at my son's house. It was easy to find a parking space, and few people were about because of the rain, or the early hour. I found the necklace quickly, and asked about this bike. She mentioned there was a place she often went to, to look for old cast-off things. I told her, when I managed the Knennebunk Transfer Station, people would come in with clean-outs, that often contained old photos, and items that were clearly important to their owners, at one time. They would be dumped out on the tarmac and I would charge for their disposal. I couldn't stop thinking about the stories in all these photos, broken lamps, mason jars, ornaments, wall hangings... Did they all have stories? Were there duplicates of these photographs? Were the people in the photos still alive? Did the living relatives of these peeoplepeople in the photos know about these captured moments? Would they care?

It made me happy to have the necklace in the bag, and see this bicycle adorned with Christmas lights, as I walked across the road, in the rain.