Things I forget are in the pockets of my denim jacket but find later;
Or, a collection of artifacts and biofacts that represent my travels in the West
By Abigail Darwin
1. Dried, dead, wildflower dust. Never a whole flower, just a streak of pollen on my thumb or a flake of purple petal under a nail. Some I collected myself, others people gave me because they know my tendencies. Most ended up in my hair or behind an ear before wilting, falling out, and pocketed. I hate that I pick flowers because I know I am killing them, that their beauty is not eternal if no longer attached to their source of life. I am not leaving them for others to appreciate or to be germinated and pass along the loveliness to the next spring. But I keep them to myself, placing them on my body to absorb their scent, color, and grace.
2. One perfectly round rock, the size of a marble, found in the Illouhette river right before the drop of the falls. Red with black flecks of mafic material. Proof of the power of water and time.
3. Sea shells. Most broken and collected from the Pacific Ocean, but a few from Sapelo Island. Headliners include: An oyster shell to use as a soap dish and fragments too iridescent to be left behind. Small snail shells that were recycled into homes for hermit crabs and now empty. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and now they reside in my pocket. Lastly, a slice of one so blue it had to be a bit of the sea trapped inside calcite.
4. Quarters from our last laundry run when everyone gathered together waiting for fresh clothes, supposedly working on school work but really just laughing at one another while driers slowly warmed the room. I found the quarters in my pocket in San Fransisco and tried to give them away to a guitarist on the street, but they were so mixed in with stones and shells, an inseparable solution, that I decided to spare him the trouble. So we danced for him to make him smile. He nodded his appreciation to us, kids who never really understood hardship.
5. Obsidian collected from Lookout Mountain who’s darkness reminded me of Carlsbad Caverns and sleek conchoidal fracturing of river water. I chipped off a piece with an edge so sharp it was translucent. When I pressed the edge into my thumb it slid inside, like a hot knife through butter, drawing out with it a dark, hot, red liquid that beaded up before falling off. There is a line on my thumb that will forever remind me of the abilities of obsidian. I felt sneaky holding my new found weapon, like an out of place Native preparing to hunt with a newly crafted arrowhead.
6. Chert has ended up in my pocket on a few more occasions than should have. Firstly in Bandelier. A slim, broken fracture approximately an inch and a half with sharp edges and almost every color represented. I had a deep internal debate on what to do with this stone. Instinctively I wanted it. But was it an artifact? Was it naturally occurring or had it been transported hundreds of miles hundreds of years ago? Was I stealing it from a future generation and from the land or was I the only one who would ever notice this thin slice? Honestly, I don’t remember which side won, only that the lecture picked back up and later that night I felt its hardness through the denim sides of my jacket. The second time was intentional. Ribbon chert. Formed by tiny plankton with outer shells made of silicon smushed together by the pressure of the ocean to form a solid silicon rock. A rock composed of what was once life. Less brilliant than the first piece, but still a rainbow.
7. It was about the size of a walnut, and it was a brain. Pink. Smooth. Seamless. A pattern of ovals on the surface. A thin layer of softer material coating a solid center. I saw it first but he exclaimed louder. It was spotlighted on our headlamps and contrasted the black sands that it washed up on. Maybe an anemone but definitely a brain. We added it to our collection that was growing too large for four hands to contain. The more we laughed the more we dropped, but we made it back with our sea cranium. The slippery tissue startled cold hands at breakfast the next morning.
8. Serpentine that I found at a mariposite outcrop. It was as green as the trees I have come to love so much. The powerful evergreens that seemed a darker green than lesser trees of the South: Redwoods and sequoias that could almost be a ancient as the serpentine itself.
9. Beach stones, driftwood, and sea glass. I never cared for the beach until I walked out on to South Beach of Point Reyes. My boots hit stone instead of sand. Billions of pea sized stones lined the beach. Reds, greens, white, translucent. Larger stones the size of my thumb worn smooth as worry stones. I filled my pockets with the larger ones first and filled the holes with the smaller. I tried to choose only the most beautiful but found that I fell in love with each that I held in my hand. After my pocket space depleted, I used my friends’, willing or not. Somehow, I thought that I could capture the beach and that exact moment if only I could fit the shore in my pockets.
10. Receipts for gas stations across the country and from lunch dates in different cities. I can’t seem to throw them away because they represent a once in a lifetime opportunity. Each slip of paper represents a different date in a different state. Many only are a day apart but apart hundreds of miles. This is the luxury of travel that I have never experienced and hold too precious to toss any remnants.
