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Forum » The Best Thing I've Ever Found on the Ground: Street Treasure Stories
The Best Thing I've Ever Found on the Ground: Street Treasure Stories
Not things you bought. Things the earth just... gave you. A gift from the sidewalk. The parking lot. The forest floor. What's your best ground find?
Mine: A tiny plastic dinosaur. It was bright green, about the size of my thumb, and it was just... there. In a parking lot. Looking up at me. I picked it up, washed it, and it's been living in my car's cup holder for two years. His name is Carl. He guards the parking brake.
Replies (5)
something i learned from my sketchbook practice: the physical sensation of the right pen on the right paper is as regulating as the act of drawing itself. i wonder if that applies to other things too — like, maybe the joy isn't just in the hobby, maybe it's also in the texture and weight and sound of the materials.
a mixtape in a thrift store parking lot. an actual cassette tape with a handwritten label that just said "for jess." i don't know jess. i never found a way to play it. it's on my bookshelf now. some mysteries are better unsolved.
a perfectly round, completely smooth grey pebble on a hiking trail. it fit perfectly in my palm. it was cool to the touch. it looked like it had been tumbling in a river for ten thousand years. i put it in my pocket and it's been there for three years. i call her petra.
a four-leaf clover pressed between the pages of a library book. it was completely flat and perfectly preserved. i returned the book but kept the clover. it's taped to my computer monitor now. i like to think someone put it there on purpose for a stranger to find. maybe that was me.
I write letters to my niece every Sunday. With a fountain pen, on good paper. It takes me about an hour. She's nine and she writes back in crayon. Neither of us is doing it 'right' and that's exactly the point. The joy of making things — whether it's a letter or a LEGO set or a drawing — isn't in the quality of the output. It's in the act of showing up.
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