Growing up, my sister and I were constantly burying things in our yard. We had a collection of beautiful rocks that we’d placed in the small garden by the App’s fence, a beaded necklace in the bald patch of dirt where the maple tree from the neighbor’s bent over exhausted into our yard. We’d barter the leaves in transition colors to one another in fall; they were so beautiful. We never thought to press them between our Parent’s thick blue speckled Dictionary and keep them forever.
I buried coins in a sock, and never found it again, deep in the forest of tamaracks behind our house. It was mostly pennies. Another one barely lasted a year. It was more of an experiment really, glue gun sealed shut. I had made that one with a friend, which is something I never did usually- share my secrets. The candies made it through the winter, but I didn’t want to eat them.
I think of how the owners of the house must respond now, when digging up the gardens to find bald Barbies with duct-tape outfits, cracked glass marbles, letters wedged into plastic bottles. It wasn’t just outside either: the letters that could fit behind the fireplace edging, poems stuffed in corners of closets, glass figurines in crawl spaces, the space between the floor and what we though was an immovable china cabinet (when we realized the new owners might move it we tried desperately to scoop out the secret over dramatic notes we had slid in years before). I hope they aren’t found yet.
The spark for all of this hiding and burying may have started from old pirate movies we used to watch as kids, or from the miraculous discovery of a 1900’s reader in our neighbor’s tree house. It was old, their own kids into their late twenties. Buried under some dry rusty leaves was this fantastic moldy book. We didn’t take it down from the tree house, even though we’d be the last ones to ever go up there. It was fascinating to think of what this book meant, whose it was, and why they never came back up for it. I loved the idea of burying secret treasures, and imaging the thousands of other people who might be doing the same thing. Burying treasures and stories. Who knew how many trinkets were littering the soil underneath yards?
I was always on the search for treasure hunts. I assumed that others would be too, and I wanted them to actually find something. Even now, sometimes I pick up objects that I find.
God still speaks to me this way, giving me hints to where truth might be found, hiding where I don’t think he’ll be, littering my path with treasures that mean something to only the two of us. He is always reminding me that what is buried underneath, unseen, can be of infinite worth; so close to budding and sprouting up.
Admittedly, if David and I had a yard, I would probably be burying things in it. This probably ups my weirdness level. Maybe I’m part dog. Scattering my belongings in places only I know about. Gathering up my dreams and burying them…Hoping and waiting to see if new growth will come. Something me buried, my stories, all around.
I buried coins in a sock, and never found it again, deep in the forest of tamaracks behind our house. It was mostly pennies. Another one barely lasted a year. It was more of an experiment really, glue gun sealed shut. I had made that one with a friend, which is something I never did usually- share my secrets. The candies made it through the winter, but I didn’t want to eat them.
I think of how the owners of the house must respond now, when digging up the gardens to find bald Barbies with duct-tape outfits, cracked glass marbles, letters wedged into plastic bottles. It wasn’t just outside either: the letters that could fit behind the fireplace edging, poems stuffed in corners of closets, glass figurines in crawl spaces, the space between the floor and what we though was an immovable china cabinet (when we realized the new owners might move it we tried desperately to scoop out the secret over dramatic notes we had slid in years before). I hope they aren’t found yet.
The spark for all of this hiding and burying may have started from old pirate movies we used to watch as kids, or from the miraculous discovery of a 1900’s reader in our neighbor’s tree house. It was old, their own kids into their late twenties. Buried under some dry rusty leaves was this fantastic moldy book. We didn’t take it down from the tree house, even though we’d be the last ones to ever go up there. It was fascinating to think of what this book meant, whose it was, and why they never came back up for it. I loved the idea of burying secret treasures, and imaging the thousands of other people who might be doing the same thing. Burying treasures and stories. Who knew how many trinkets were littering the soil underneath yards?
I was always on the search for treasure hunts. I assumed that others would be too, and I wanted them to actually find something. Even now, sometimes I pick up objects that I find.
God still speaks to me this way, giving me hints to where truth might be found, hiding where I don’t think he’ll be, littering my path with treasures that mean something to only the two of us. He is always reminding me that what is buried underneath, unseen, can be of infinite worth; so close to budding and sprouting up.
Admittedly, if David and I had a yard, I would probably be burying things in it. This probably ups my weirdness level. Maybe I’m part dog. Scattering my belongings in places only I know about. Gathering up my dreams and burying them…Hoping and waiting to see if new growth will come. Something me buried, my stories, all around.
1 comment:
As usual I love reading your blog.
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