artifacts

Today was trash day in the neighborhood and I realized that I will soon come to know people I might never meet by what they toss.

Gardeners are recyclers. I came back with two suitably-sized pots and a tray for seedlings. But oh, the agony. On a corner was a wooden planter among bags of sodden leaves. I could think of three uses and homes for the whiskey barrel, but had to walk away. First choice would have been on my balcony, but that would soon have crashed to the ground -- seven floors below!

There was a documentary a few years ago about people who have turned scavenging into an art in France. It is not viewed with skepticism or distaste there. Those who ply this urban recycling are called scavengers, but in the countryside they're called gleaners or pickers. Words have that power: to reframe and transform. I like that. It's all in your perception. In Wellesley, MA and other New England towns, the town dumps have taken on the tone of boutiques, town meeting, coffee klatch and more. I like the idea of being a gleaner: "to gather, to pick bit by bit."

But I digress. Anyway late this afternoon I found a surprise package in my mail box. A gardening friend who lives three time zones away had sent me a juicy little book ("Container Gardening" by Stephanie Donaldson). I stripped the book bag off and started to toss that when a line in the accompanying note stopped me. The bag was over thirty years old. Unable to resist, I peeled back her mailing label and found that it was postmarked August 12, 1971, and it was addressed to her dad.

I love those times when the most innocuous things provide glimpses into people's lives. In this case I learned that her father was into ham radios. He'd received a book on the subject and, get this, the packaging bore only 14 cents postage!! It had cost his daughter $3.95 to send my book. Amazing.

S's dad was a quiet, meticulous man with seemingly limitless patience and attention to detail. He'd spend hours on a riding mower -- or small tractor -- carefully grooming the sloping yard around their Connecticut home. His wife was the gardener. I'd known that he fixed clocks, but now I'd discovered another of his pastimes. It might have even been a passion.

My gardening buddy from the northwest had carefully saved that envelope for nearly thirty-five years. It was an artifact. Whatever her reason for letting it go -- recycling it -- at long last, I was as pleased to see it as the gift inside. It made a sort of personalized gift wrap, which also brought back fond memories of a gentle man, a real gentleman and an avid hobbyist.

Artifacts and clues to hidden lives. Or put another way, one person's trash is another person's artifact.