Finders Keepers

In the beginning of this walk I believed that I was always finding just what I needed on the side of the road. When I lost my titanum mug I found a plastic cup the same day which carried me over until my cup was found and flown to me a month later. In New England's winter, when I needed cover from snow and sleeting rain on my hands that held my walking sticks, I found disguarded rain pants I quickly cut the legs from to hood my frozen fingers. This is still the truth of the walk: what I need will come. The difference now is that I am unsure if I am passing a diamond or a stone. I want to save everything. Of course this is ridiculas when everything that I glean has to be attached to my shoulders. Something inside has readjusted. Now when I see homeless people I understand the shopping cart of seemingly useless trash piled high. They too are afraid--or is it concern, that the twine we pass today may very well be the belt we wear tomorrow? Knowing this tendency is stooped over in me to gather the next treasure, I talk myself on past articles that beg to wander these miles with me. They know that once I get home...wherever home will one day be, I will be less inclined to adopt all that I see by the roadside. Everything that I have gathered is just about impossible for me to part with once we have miles of history together. We become related, friends, parts of each other, still hoping to make sense, to fit in, to be needed.
My ex-wife had the same feelings for stuffed animals and dolls. I used to laugh in gentle cruelity as she struggled past a doll at the bottom of a box left over from someone's tag sale. I knew the soiled painted face would find it's way home to our china cabinet at the bottom of the stairs where it would sit with the other foster dolls and animals that seemed to smile out over empty wine glasses with foggy eyes full of hope.
Life gives us practice when we are not surrounded by the ones we love, or will love, we are given just enough to care for so the heart stays familiar with the feeling of being wanted....and showing others we want them.